My job is to deliver pensions to people who currently get pots. I am one of the millions of people over 57  who needs to convert pots to invested pensions. PDQ.

It is time that someone stuck his hand up for collective pensions (aka CDC) . I will , because no-one would at the rash of “DC” conferences this week

I have written elsewhere about my objection to so much being spent by and on so few to discuss under Chatham House matters what a wider audience will never learn from.

It does not stop at Oxford’s Randolph Hotel, we now get the follow-up parade by the thinkers who were there.

This is the list of thinkers from around the world.

The conference bills were paid by this lot. In case you don’t recognise TIAA Nuveen, they’re the American firm that is buying Schroders. All the sponsors of the event are from America except the Gold supporter who comes from India.

I suppose this gives some authenticity to this being a global event, but if all the global range of speakers, audience and sponsor, all that struck Carl Emmerson was

 that, despite different contexts, many countries are grappling with the very same challenges: adequacy, inclusion, decumulation, technology and many more.

Where do defined contribution pensions go next?

The highlights of the two day show appears to have been anything but pensions, Here’s economist Carl Emmerson’s estimation

There’s plenty for the UK to think about. To give one example: might some limited early access help make DC saving more attractive? That question will matter more if default contribution rates rise for lower earners, for whom locking more money away until their late 50s is a bigger ask. Of course, access carries real risks for adequacy, but it’s a trade-off worth debating

I thought that conference like this were about our  “wage in retirement” – how wrong I was. If this is the direction DC takes, then lets call it something other than “pension”

Having been through the agenda to this Conference , I saw no mention of collective pensions as a future for defined contribution pensions. This can be no surprise looking at the organisers but it does not bode well for CDC , at least among “thinkers. I wonder if Lord David Pitt-Watson made it.

More worrying is that our Pension Minister appears to have been hosted by the CEO of Britain’s second largest DC master trust (agenda billed us Gregg McClymont). I would have liked to hear whether collective pensions got a mention by Bell or Heath-Lay.