This blog is written with the joy of being right when everybody’s told you , you were wrong – for years! For explanation of the title read to the end where the polls of yesterday’s packed out session featuring the four folk above was carried out.

I’m banned from the media room and had my badge withdrawn (very Trumpian). The reason given that I am too biased towards CDC to be a balanced journalist (too right I am, I’m a biased blogger!).

At one stage the Annual Conference had only one concurrent session, tucked away at the end of the final day when most people are packing up. Thankfully, Aptia persuaded in the usual way the Conference organisers to offer a session on the opening day.

Well done them and well done Emma Simon for getting her report out within hours of the session.

Audience reaction to the CDC session

I have had messages on social media from fans of CDC explaining what went on in what appears to have been a packed hall (no surprise there – CDC is still massively under-represented in this Conference). My favorite (which tickles my vanity vein) is from a very senior professional trustee.

Henry, please accept my apologies for not replying earlier. I went to a session today [Tuesday] on UMES-CDC and your name was mentioned affectionately by one of the speakers. Take care.

The message was sent at three 23.57 – that’s accuracy in dating on his part!

Aptia’s white paper

Aptia’s white paper ‘Unconnected Multi-Employer CDC Schemes in Practice’ is available for download here. I will report on it separately, you can get a flavour from the cover

No detail of what was said but here’s the polls set by Aptia

Another trustee sent me the results of the polls conducted  in the session. I’m sorry that I don’t have the polls in full, perhaps Pensions UK will share them in due course but from what’s below, there looks at least a quarter of delegates who see CDC as likely to become mainstream and a third of employers are actively exploring whether to switch to CDC.

This is in line with a projection made earlier this year that a third of DC plans would switch to CDC. Apologies for un journalistic quality of publication but it’s what’s on my phone from attendants of what sounds a hard hitting session, focussing on workplace rather than at retirement CDC.

In case people think this small numbers for a poll, I’m told that there were people trying into the concurrent session who were turned away because the meeting was full up.