Derek Scott has a very sensible view of pension awareness which we get a lot of on this blog!
Derek Scott’s view of Pension Awareness follows my publication of thoughts on the subject of Pension Awareness Days – yesterday!
The existence of a “Pensions Awareness Day” creates the illusion that the problem is being addressed simply because people are made aware of pensions.
In reality, 14 September 2026 will pass with most people blissfully unaware that it even exists.
It’s rather like having a “Road Safety Day” while doing little or nothing about dangerous driving on our roads.
The very idea of a “Pensions Awareness Day” is ironic.
Pensions are one of the clearest examples of why financial awareness needs to become a habit rather than an event.
Nobody expects people to become financially secure by thinking about their pensions for one day a year.
The real challenge is getting a 27-year-old to make sensible decisions today that will matter when they are 67 — and then helping them revisit those decisions as their circumstances change.
So your blog could be turned around rather effectively.
The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough pension-awareness campaigns. The problem is that we’ve confused having a pension-awareness day with maintaining pension awareness.
And the proliferation of “Pensions Awareness Day”, “Pay Your Pension Some Attention”, celebrity campaigns, ambassadors and sponsors simply demonstrates the point.
If the public needs two competing days to remind them that pensions exist, perhaps the pension industry should spend rather less time inventing days and rather more time making pensions sufficiently transparent, understandable and enviable that people don’t need reminding.
A much better campaign would make every annual pension statement or every dashboard visit a moment of awareness.
That doesn’t mean abandoning the Pension Geeks or their educational work. Quite the opposite. Their most valuable contribution may be turning pensions from an annual marketing event into an ongoing conversation about saving, investment and retirement income.
A really successful campaign based on education and regular information updates would ultimately make the “awareness day(s)” redundant.
embargoed no more?
Footnote ; not from Derek Scott but the Pension Plowman – furrowing his plot!
I mistakenly publicised this “resource” earlier this month at a time when it was embargoed. I think that this is no longer “embargoed” till September 4th – it’s for “Campaign supporter resources” and it’s on an open URL. I assume that anyone who wants to be a campaigner supporter can be!
