We have had many years debating how to deliver “CDC” to a point that we have got ourselves to “go”! Alastair has produced an excellent little paper that with the help of Andre Clark and Andy Fifer reminds us of the journey we have been on. But now is not the time to debate the past, now is the time to get workplace Collective Pensions to millions of people who have been left short of a pension in the last quarter of a century.

It is important that we have discussion papers exploring how UK CDC has developed from Dutch CDC and Alistair has produced one .

But to suppose that we are at the “design stage” of what we shall be calling in future “Collective Pensions” is to ignore the work of various bodies who were asking how the UK would proceed.

“Building CDC the right way” was agreed in the last decade between Royal Mail and 120,000 postal workers and is now being rolled out to hundreds of thousands of employers. Gallagher, who are a party to this report know how interested their clients are. They , more than any other consultant, have asked employers what employers want.

Yesterday I published a proposal from the Director of Private Pensions at the DWP to move on from “CDC” which was being confused as an idea.

Because the idea behind what is being delivered is not a form of DC at all.  Andre Clark, who I have a lot of time for, has hit the nail right on the head.

There is a danger that this simple and brilliant idea may become something that will be debated for many years. But the Risks the UK has yet to address about retirement are much wider than delivery of pension, the risks include how we pay for elderly health and care, how we manage the costs of where the elderly live.

The learning on what works for collective pensions has been done, we have had the Netherlands, we have had Canada and we have had Royal Mail. We are not at the starting post, we are well into the race.

We must be careful not to confuse delivering Collective Pensions with adequacy.

It is much more than how much we save – it is about what we save for. Collective Pension pay a part but they are only a step along the way. I both agree with Andre and ask him to separate the issue of delivery from adequacy; adequacy is a much larger problem that a pension delivery system can solve

Here I see it as important that those who control the amount of money contributed regard Collective Pensions as deferred pay and that employees and their representatives (unions) work out a balance between pay today and pay tomorrow. This is not a discussion about governance but of timing of earnings. The debate on the minutia of Collective Pensions has been had, it is now a case of getting good ideas turned into delivery mechanisms.

Trustees may feel constrained because there are likely to be very few Collective Pension schemes and there are very many trustees in DC. Here this concern is evident

There is now a second wave of experts in Collective Pensions who want to teach us how to do it. But it is being done.

The first wave of Collective workplace Pensions have governing trustees ready. There will be more Collective Pensions but not that many, they are part of pension consolidation.

The first wave of Collective Pension Proprietors were having this discussion more than a decade ago and the DWP has been working on UMES and on R-CDC for almost as long.

The heavy lifting from Collective Pension trustees and proprietors will come.  For now the matter in hand is the funding and authorisation of Collective Pension Plans that  a million employers can use.

Meanwhile their discussions with unions and with other staff representatives is under way.

Can we stop debating and start delivering Collective Pensions!