You wouldn’t think that 76% of the UK’s large employers are reviewing their DC pensions with CDC in mind. I think it is the biggest thing happening to pensions and I hope that Jamie does to
Reading Jamie’s vision for his time as Chair of the Pensions UK , I fear that Pensions UK has yet to fully embrace CDC 
The latest of Pensions UK’s regular columns looks at how The Pension Schemes Act and Pensions Commission are transforming how it thinks about adequacy, value, and the very structure of the market.
The issue is that CDC is not inside the Pension Schemes Act so on the face of it, it’s not on your agenda
I’ve spoken to you, Jamie. I know that you are not trying to cut CDC out of Pensions UK interest; but some who don’t – might!
This transition comes at a pivotal time for pensions. The sector is changing rapidly, driven by the Pension Schemes Act and the policy evolution being shaped by the Pensions Commission. Together, they are transforming how we think about adequacy, value, and the very structure of the market.
I quite agree, though there are other things on our minds right now. We might want to think about what pensioners get out of social care and how that is funded. I would put the commission on it right right up with the pensions commission. Can we broaden the scope to make sure that retirement outcomes are more than what we get from our pots!
There are three items on your agenda Jamie and I cannot disagree with anything on them other than to say they are a little high level , dare I say it – a little uncontraversial!
Focus one
The first must be a relentless focus on savers. As an industry, we have made significant progress over the past decade – not least through the success of auto-enrolment – but there is more to do to ensure the system is reaching its full potential and is alive to changes being brought by societal expectations and new technology. Ensuring we understand the needs and expectations of all savers needs to be integral to all our work.
I suspect that this has been a little worked by the Pensions UK PR team. Much of this could include a lot of things and I hope that it does include important things such as the Pensions Dashboard, small pots and (you’ve guessed it) how to deliver workplace CDC in 2027 and on.
Focus 2
I think there may be a typo here . We do not have the pensions bill quoted below
My second area of focus is on bringing people together and making the most of all of our industry’s collective expertise. My ambition is for Pensions UK to continue to be an organisation that not only convenes, but also more proactively leads in solving problems – working collaboratively to develop practical, evidence-based solutions to the challenges we face. It’s clear from the pensions bill and roadmap that we need to make fundamental changes to our infrastructure to deliver this change.
I have been through the top lawyer’s best endeavours to find a pensions bill. I’ve tried and and can find none outstanding in 2026.
Third focus
Thirdly, I am committed to ensuring Pensions UK remains a forward-looking organisation – one that anticipates change rather than reacts to it. That means supporting innovation, engaging constructively with government and regulators, and ensuring our collective voice is both strong and clear.
Here here Jamie, your predecessor was a bringer together of many different strands of thinking. You will do the same, but I think we need Pensions UK to be more representative. I hope that my Pension Scheme will become a member when we are authorised to do CDC business but I’d like to feel we were a member on the basis of our influence and service , not just that we are prepared to advertise our wares!
Pensions UK took a good step when moving to Pensions UK. There is nothing wrong with saving but the Pension and Lifetime Saving Association is no more, it become Pensions UK to emphasis pensions.
I am currently not going to the Autumn Conference , I understood that I am considered a provider but I would point out that we are yet to be authorise (opening of authorisation is Monday 3rd August!) we won’t be authorised until your Manchester event is done.
I have a very big soft spot for you Jamie Fiveash, I wish you well and hope that we can see CDC and the other matters mentioned firmly on the Pensions UK agenda in your time as Chair!
I couldn’t agree more, Henry, which is a dangerous thing for me to say, my conformation bias is showing.
My own AI assisted response is this:
Platitude one — “A relentless focus on savers”
This is the pensions industry’s equivalent of a restaurant announcing it is “customer-focused.”
The statement asserts that savers matter — a proposition no one in the industry has ever publicly contested — and then dresses that tautology in the language of aspiration.
“There is more to do” is content-free: it neither identifies what remains undone, nor what “full potential” would look like if achieved, nor what specific societal expectations or technologies are in play.
“Ensuring we understand the needs and expectations of all savers needs to be integral to all our work” is a circular sentence: understanding needs is integral to understanding needs. A vision statement that could be issued verbatim by a water utility, a bus company, or a pet insurer, is not a vision — it is a fill-in-the-blank template.
The auto-enrolment reference is the only concrete noun in the paragraph, and it is backward-looking — celebrating a decade-old achievement while gesturing vaguely at “more to do.”
If savers are genuinely “first,” I would expect at least one saver-level outcome to be named: adequacy? engagement? value for money? The absence is telling.
Platitude two — “Bringing people together”
This paragraph manages to use “collective” twice and “collaboratively” once, while exemplifying none of these concepts.
“Making the most of all of our industry’s collective expertise” is a sentence that means exactly nothing until an expertise is named and a use specified.
“Develop practical, evidence-based solutions to the challenges we face” — which challenges? Whose evidence? What solutions?
The paragraph is a cluster of verbs with their objects removed: convening (whom?), leading (towards what?), solving (what?), developing (what?).
The closing reference to “the pensions bill and roadmap” and the need for “fundamental changes to our infrastructure” is the only moment of specificity — and it immediately highlights the vacuity of everything before it, because the author evidently can name concrete things when they choose to.
Platitude three — “Forward-looking”
“Anticipates change rather than reacts to it” is a distinction without content: every organisation claims to anticipate, none claims to merely react.
“Supporting innovation” and “engaging constructively with government and regulators” are phrases that could be lifted from any annual report of any trade body in any sector in any year.
“Ensuring our collective voice is both strong and clear” returns to the emptiness of Platitude two — a voice is strong and clear when it says something; the statement itself says nothing.
A note on “collaboration”:
To repeat an earlier comment I made on an earlier blog, by conventional understanding, a collaborator is one who assists an enemy, helping groups to which he does not belong threaten groups to which he does belong.
That conventional meaning of collaboration is not “people from different organisations sitting in the same room and agreeing that something should be done.”
Collaboration if it must be used in the context of pensions should be a working concept: it should denote parties with distinct capabilities, resources, or authority contributing those assets to a shared, defined objective, with accountability for delivery.
It requires specificity — you collaborate on something, with measurable outputs and a division of labour.
What the author describes — “convening,” “bringing people together,” “making the most of collective expertise” — is not collaboration but its simulacrum: the performance of togetherness without the substance of shared work.
A convener books a room and sends invitations; a collaborator does something with others that none could do alone.
The author’s language reveals the confusion: they aspire for Pensions UK to be an organisation that “not only convenes, but also more proactively leads in solving problems.”
But “leading” and “collaborating” are not the same activity, and an organisation that insists on leading while calling it collaborating will find its partners quickly identifying the gap between the words and the practice.
If Mr Fiveash wants his statement to be taken seriously by an industry that has heard this exact vocabulary for twenty years or more, the remedy is simple: replace every instance of “challenges we face” with a named challenge, every “practical solution” with a proposed direction, and every “collective” with the specific parties whose collective action is required.
A vision that cannot survive contact with specificity was never a vision.
Is this a case of “he who pays the piper calls the tune”?
Pensions UK has grown substantially with multiple directorates and 58 employees and a highest paid director paid £330K (in 2024). Who pays for this – to a large extent it those organisations who extract assets from pension pots and pooled funds as advisors, consultants, asset managers, lawyers, covenant advisors etc. etc.. Hence it is not surprising the instinctive reaction to pensions adequacy is “let us have more money” in form of contributions to boost this “industry” rather than to address efficiency by reducing the extraction of resources by this industry. and which CDC challenges.