Thankfully, the Pensions Regulator has returned to pensions as the focus of what it regulates. Its consultation on its five year corporate plan is at time merely rhetoric but the opening gambit is something of an admission that the Regulator had got it wrong.
In 2021, our corporate strategy put the pension saver at the heart of all that we do. Today, we build on that commitment. We are taking a system-wide view, looking beyond the accumulation of savings in a pension pot, to the outcomes that people experience throughout retirement.
At the same time , the National Association of Pension Funds had become the PLSA with the emphasis on Lifetime Savings.
Had it not been for dedicated souls like Richard Smith, who knew the value of regular income being a 50 year old pensioner, the pensions dashboard would have launched as a wealth dashboard – showing pots and not pensions.
The anguish at TPR’s Brighton HQ must have been substantial when the Pensions Minister pointed out that it had been barking up the wrong tree. The Pensions Scheme Act and CDC legislation has meant a return to Pensions for this Regulator.
Automatic enrolment has transformed retirement
saving in the UK. With more than 23 million people
now saving into a workplace pension, this is a
major public policy success and provides a strong
foundation for the future.But the task ahead is to ensure that saving over a
lifetime delivers what matters most: a sustainable
income in retirement. People need confidence that
their money is secure and delivers value at every
stage, from joining a scheme through to retirement
and beyond, whatever their circumstances.
William Wright argues in the FT today that things need to get better
Whichever way you look at it, over the past five years the industry has been misfiring, despite an improvement in 2025. On the domestic side, activity in UK banking and capital markets has shrunk relative to GDP in more than 70 per cent of the sectors we analysed.
On the international side, the UK is still the dominant financial centre in key sectors such as trading, cross-border banking and specialist insurance, but it has lost global market share to rival financial centres in two-thirds of sectors.
And on a selection of qualitative measures, the relative attractiveness of the UK as an investment destination and a place to do business has deteriorated. Overall, the output of the financial services sector has flatlined over the past 15 years and employment has fallen.
It may be tempting to blame this on Brexit, but the challenges are more structural and in many cases can be traced back over decades. They include persistent under-investment; the unintended consequences of layers of well-intended regulatory and tax reforms; the fragmented structure of the industry; a lack of consistent and co-ordinated government policy; and the dominance of a savings culture.
I will be writing our response to the Pensions Regulator, saying what William Wright and New Financial are saying (rather better in the FT). Though we are still doing well in financial services , we are not doing as well because pension assets are falling behind other countries. Look at their numbers
We are at home and abroad failing to manage our and others assets as we did and to a large part , this is because we no longer dare to invest .
The Pensions Regulator has to encourage us to grow. I will be urging the Pensions Regulator to restore pensions to savings, growth instead of more de-risking.
