I thought we were to get comment from Pensions UK on Torsten Bell but it turned out an advert. I find a lot of what I read is no more than advert for conferences and that conferences are just adverts for those who’ve sponsored the conferences
I suppose that this is the way that things work but when I look at what Pensions UK is calling for, I find it’s momentum that’s critical to continue to provide better outcomes for savers.
I am not sure whether there is quite the alignment between Pensions UK and Torsten Bell’s agenda. The Pension UK agenda for savers is to get them to pay either as pay deductions or pay replacement 12% of earnings. The Pension Minister’s agenda is to work on what is done with the money (8%) that’s generally going to the sponsors of Pension UK’s shows.
At the last Pensions UK event I went to this spring, there was nothing at all on the agenda on the workplace CDCs that will be opened for authorisation in a week’s time. Instead there was an advertorial from WTW about how it’s DC master trust could offer Retirement CDC as a default option for savers. This was not about building up a pension but turning pots to pensions and not something around the door but something in three years time.
To say that there is alignment between Pension UK and the Pension Minister’s agenda over CDC is difficult to justify. The one change that Pensions UK seem to have achieved is to knock back Retirement Guided Income as defaults for those getting to retirement, these won’t come in till even later than Retirement CDC.
In short, I do not see the agenda of those who pull the strings within the pension industry as aligned to what the DWP and Treasury are after. That the CDC stalwart, David Pitt-Watson has entered the Treasury as a Minister, suggests that Andy Burnham’s Government is going to push for people accruing pensions not building savings pots; put another way, a wage in retirement not wealth in retirement.
Lord Pitt-Watson
If there was a political message for the pensions industry (a proxy for which is Pensions UK) is that a return to save-save-save is not around the corner. At a time when we are trying to reduce the cost of living so that we can get back to a better standard of living, it is efficiency of what we do with the wages we defer that matters.
I suspect that with a new endorsement of his work so far, Torsten Bell will see through the bulk of the Pension Roadmap before the next election. What comes out of the Pensions Commission (2) is less sure but I suspect it will endorse the Pension Roadmap and not much more.
It does not sound to be interested in wealth in retirement, more the question of pensions – what can we make the deferred pay for the 15m of us who will be underpaid in later life.