16 years on – still stripped
Terry Monk rightly points to my blog and asks do I give the prominence to the plight of his generation of pensioners who had the bad luck to find their pensions collapse before the PPF was invented to provide such schemes and pensioners with a safety net. My blog referred to is here .
Terry Monk commenting on my blog.
Here is a mail passed to me by its author , the man who brought FAS and the PPF into existence. He is not sitting back on his MBE…
I entirely agree with your comments on Henry’s blog. The problem we have is the reliance we place on the retail savings/“pensions’” industry. Typified by the likes of Pensions UK itself, it’s “conference” (trade show more like it), the myriad award dinners, postings on LinkedIn of the success of buyouts, and the level of costs and charges throughout.
At least consolidation in the sense of getting rid of the plethora of “schemes” mostly set up when sold on the back of paying lower NI, will cull that fee fest.We must be very close to the 50th anniversary in the life of the creation of SERPS. Much opposed by that fee fest industry and finally killed off by the much lauded Adair. Annoyingly abetted by Jeannie and John Hills, both of whom I much admire.I doubt if there was anyone at the Pensions UK conference who knew much about SERPS. It had faults and I would redesign it now and will in my submission to the Pensions Commission.But it is hilarious to hear the industry bleat on about small pots, the problems of designing decumulation, the lack of coverage (because they didn’t want even smaller pots), the gender pensions gap (which was mitigated in SERPS by credits and survivors benefits, now abolished) etc etc.WHILE IN 13 years they have not seriously tackled these, while moaning about people not saving enough.I hope Jeannie sees her way to read Barbara Castle’s work as well as the wealth industry pleas. My concern with Jeannie is that she has skin in the Turner approach and may not be sufficiently open to change. It wouldn’t take much to make a proper difference to the people who need help. The rest can easily save enough and hopefully the Dashboard will bring a dose of reality to them.The retail industry can then work to make sure the better off do save more, which is fine by me.
I endorse him in his rant, it is a proper criticism of the short-coming of the Conference we have just had and it is a criticism of the uncritical support of the Pensions Minister.
I was at PLSA in April when Torsten Bell promised compensation from the PPF to those like Terry Monk. The Pre-97 losers now look likely to be punished till they die for contributing to pensions that went wrong.
Here is an email from someone left in FAS with pre 97 rights. I received this today after the fellow had read a report of the Minister’s comments at Manchester..
“Addressing the Pensions UK Annual Conference in Manchester this week, Torsten Bell the pensions minister insisted that the government would not repeat the mistake of “leaving pensions until it’s too late”, and said that a long-standing consensus on the need for adequacy, consolidation, and better governance was finally becoming a reality.
I wish I had been there to ask whether he did not think he was already too late in improving the FAS
I wonder, for all the time their staff spend preparing these speeches, whether they actually think about what their words mean.
It is easy for Pensions UK to put this issue behind it. PLSA put pre 97 indexation behind it -so had another incarnation- the NAPF. But that doesn’t put injustice in a filing cabinet to be forgotten.
This Conference spent a lot of time discussing minor issues like small pots and no time at all supporting those who are now suffering loss of pensions. The PPF is flush with cash, hopelessly in surplus with no plan on how to spend the excess .
What is the Government waiting for? One of these insurers that the PRA are worried about? Insurers using pension money to fund reinsurance- Bermudian obfuscation that could go bust. Is the PPF set to become a bail-out for a systemic failure which we’re allowing to develop? PIC were on our Conference Bags, Just had a large stand. But the PPF were nowhere to be seen.
I hope that a copy of this blog is circulated through the PPF, the DWP and the Treasury. It is not good our Minister promising justice in April and withdrawing the offer in October, for that is what the Minister did in his session on Wednesday.
Not good of the Minister to take no action – not good for the Conference to make no mention of this issue. It is down to Terry Monk and those who set up the PPF to remind us that pensioners die each month without recompense.
20 years on, still waiting for justice
Firstly, I should declare an interest: I “retired” from a final salary scheme with guaranteed full rpi linked pension increases and decades of service just before the end of the last century (although commencing my pension a couple of years later). The pension scheme was more than fully funded at that time. When the real gilt yield fell to around 2% a couple of years later, the pension scheme was closed to accrual. 8 years later, when the deficit recovery contributions ceased to be based on a positive real gilt yield, the sponsoring employer took the view that it had no realistic prospect of meeting the contributions now being required of it plus the PPF levy and went into administration / liquidation with loss of jobs.
After a hiatus of a few years, partly created by GMP Equalisation issues, the PPF determined that the pension scheme, which had run on a closed basis, had been over-funded for PPF level benefits (at 10N%). A couple of years later by which time the real gilt yield had fallen to -2% the liabilities were bought out with an insurer at PPF plus N-y% (a negligible number) benefits. I am therefore left with almost my entire pension (except for the GMP) no longer receiving inflation related increases, in line with the contract I had signed when I joined the pension scheme and committed to the Member contributions.
If the PPF assessment had provided for pre 1997 indexation, my pension scheme would have entered the PPF.
So lets consider what has happened to my contributions and the other assets to the pension scheme. The simple answer is that they have ended up with an insurer (possibly, although not in my case, now owned by overseas private equity) in a policy that was priced on a minus 2% gilt yield (or the swaps equivalent) basis at a time when the risk premium represented in the matching adjustment adopted by the insurer was around 5% p.a. higher and when expected mortality was vastly over valued.
If the scheme assets had been slightly less at the time the employer took the view that it could no longer meet the deficit recovery contributions plus the PPF levy, the Scheme would have entered the PPF. It therefore appears likely that the present PPF surplus also arises from the over-valuation of the liabilities of the schemes which entered the PPF and the over-statement of the risk based levies against the subsequent reality in both mortality and investment performance.
If the Government is now seeking to harbour the PPF assets against the risk of a possible loss of a significant bulk purchase annuity provider, it appears that the insurance company owners have effectively stolen resources from pension funds both those where the employers are no longer in existence and those continuing who have paid excessive PPF levies and also unnecessary deficit recovery contributions now apparently represented in pension scheme surpluses.
Just as the first call on the surpluses now in the pension schemes must surely be to uplift the pension rights of the members to match inflation, is it not reasonable to say that the first call on the surplus of the PFF should also be the indexation of benefits!
That would then leave different issues with the willingness of the Government to fund increases to Financial Assistance Scheme benefits, and also the equivalence of those members whose pension rights have been bought out with an insurer without inflation protection. I recall there was a few years ago some suggestion of a windfall profits tax on insurers who have benefitted from the over-pricing of annuity contracts. Perhaps a requirement to at least “Minimum Rate” inflation protect all DB benefit buy-in and buy-out policies could address the inequality issues.
Is the Government apparently back-tracking on its promise to address the pre 1997 indexation issue because of pressure from the Insurance sector? I hope not!
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