The day after hosting Richard Smith and his optimistic account of how the Pensions Dashboard is progressing , I find this!

I had just sorted out my thoughts on Standard Life’s report Retirement Voice 2026. I’d concluded that it was telling us exactly what will happen if we don’t get our act together and return to saving for a wage in retirement. As Richard says, people who are happy in retirement have kids who are less happy and grandkids who are very worried indeed.

We really are failing our younger generations if that’s the case.

Here’s the key numbers from the Standard Life Retirement Voice report.

The Pensions Dashboard is a reminder to us of what our wages become when we stop getting paid for what we do.

What’s extraordinary is that the people who are in retirement tell us they are generally ok with their standard of living. I suspect that what most people have to pay the bills is more than their money in pots but money from the state pension, defined benefits many of which are still open and the huge amount of wealth we collectively have in Cash ISAs. We have collectively a considerable amount in equity ISAs; but nowhere near as much as Sid would have wanted us to have back in the 1980s. We also have the equity in our houses for us to fall back through remortgaging (what’s known as equity release).

This is what is making our boomer generation comfortable in retirement. That’s what makes 70% of those in retirement today saying their standard of living is higher on a retirement wage than a working wage.

Why then this depression about the future? I suspect that we have been talked into feeling bad about the amount we save by organisations that profit from our savings. I suspect that Standard Life stand behind the call for a 12% contribution under AE to make us a little Australia whose Super system mandates that level of contribution.

But there are other ways of doing it. The number that is being quoted by Prospect Union is 3% as the equivalent contribution towards pensions made from pay if employers switch from DC to CDC pensions. That means that we could get from 8% to 11% without having to impact workplace pay.

Alongside the Pensions Dashboard, I think a more efficient way to build up a pension has to be a priority. Gallagher reckon that 76% of the large client companies that they interviewed were going to review their DC workplace pension in the light of whole of life CDC (what are sometimes called collective pensions).

It is time that we moved on from the argument that we should mandate higher minimum AE contributions and turn instead to improving what we are doing and have done. We need to get to grips with the income our pots will pay us and look at what could be achieved if we swapped a personal pot for a collective pensionl

I see Richard Smith’s campaign to up the game through a Pensions Dashboard as aligned with my campaign to get us saving for a pension not a pot! Standard Life’s “Retirement Voice” is really useful but some of its questions rather miss the point!

That’s simply not a pension , it’s a pot. It won’t show as £100,000 on the pensions dashboard but as around £7,000 per year (and that with no protection against inflation or pension for the spouse in case of earlier death). The Government reckons the income from an annuity will be up to 60% less than from a collective pension.

Isn’t it time we stopped asking questions about our pots and ask instead about our retirement wage? The Pensions Dashboard will show your future pay and CDC will deliver a lifetime  pay rise.