Ducks float on the waters of Loch Lomond

I am up here in the Cameron House on the edge of Loch Lomond with people who want to talk about defined benefit pension schemes.

There is no way to understand how people feel but by with them morning noon and night, yesterday we did noon and night, today all three and then we go home. Thank you DG publishing for putting our heads together.

I have promised not to name names and won’t , there were Pension Regulator’s and former Pension Regulator’s and there were DB pension managers worrying about what to do with their pensions and many getting on with paying pensions and collecting more contributions as the schemes here were largely big enough to have a say in their own determination.

But – lest Richard Tice is reading this – this is a bunch of people working out a way forward with a bunch of money people have no conception of in private saving. DC pensions will get there and quickly and for many more people but the experience is in the funded DB sector, experience of investment. As one of my supper colleagues, this is all about investment.

Some of the trustees I talked to were alive to the threat to improve that comes from the Pensions Minister (read my blogs on Torsten Bell in Parliament’s General Committee). Some see the threat from Reform . Neither can be ignored, for all the glory of Loch Lomond , the hard fact is defined benefit have taken money from employers and employees that might otherwise have been invested in the future,

I will be hearing, as we all will, from a young man who wants to invest in technology, here and overseas. He tells me of the opportunity that has been missed with the skillset within Britain to match America (especially California). It is a matter of great importance that we do not go one missing opportunities, we need the next wave of opportunity to be seized by the people at this event and by those who make it happen.

Yesterday was the Pension Regulator’s Day, I sense a certain dissatisfaction that so little is getting done to make consolidation happen within pensions. There was a certain amount of talk about DB master trusts but The Pension Trust stressed that it was CDC and Superfunds which are the way forward for collective pensions, neither are here and the Roadmap which has been published by the DWP  shows everything  way away. Good ideas have come and gone , private equity has taken over much of bulk purchase annuity market but this is not their conference,

Instead, it is up to the Pension Regulator to show not just the open door but the encouragement to display best endeavours to those who want to run on. This means an enthusiasm for pensions that matches those who they regulate. We may get there, but I wonder if it will be quick enough to enable smaller schemes to make up their minds.

One professional trustee asked the question

“We are told if we know an offer to buy-out is on the table and refuse it, we are negligent and we cannot insure against insurance – what do you tell me”

There was no answer from the Pensions Regulator for in truth there is no support for DB trustees but their employer covenant. When that has gone – what can they do?

I would like an answer to that question too, I do not want to me out of a pension and into an annuity for fear of investing.

Early evening on these gentle banks