Category Archives: accountants

Managing and measuring DB schemes (Keating, Tilba and Clacher)

Posted on December 14, 2020 by henry tapper

With the intention of keeping the Pension Regulator focused, Keating and Clacher have recruited Dr Anna Tilba of Durham University to their ranks.  A powerful triumvirate of pension intellectuals whose latest  blog is an antidote to the toxicity of pseudo … Continue reading →

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Workplace pensions – what we pay and why we pay it!

Posted on November 1, 2020 by henry tapper

David Hutchins , who is the presiding genius at Alliance Bernstein, a firm whose investment services power many workplace pensions has written a strongly worded piece in the FT that calls on product providers to ensure savers know what they … Continue reading →

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Green pensions? How the DWP are looking to take the luck out of the pot.

Posted on October 11, 2020 by henry tapper

Gina Miller is right on this Encouraging people to go green with their #pensions is an excellent aspiration but be very cautious @GuyOpperman Until @TheFCA protects consumers by granting 100% transparency of holdings, acts to stop #greenwashing – this could … Continue reading →

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Seven ways to improve Defined Benefit funding

Posted on September 10, 2020 by henry tapper

In March 2020, The Pensions Regulator (TPR) opened a consultation on its proposed revisions to the DB funding code. In framing its response, First Actuarial proposes seven ways to change DB funding for the better. What do we want the … Continue reading →

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Ros Altmann’s response to TPR’s DB funding code consultation.

Posted on September 3, 2020 by henry tapper

I have asked for responses to the Pension Regulator’s consultation questions and Ros Altmann has obliged. As a member of the House of Lords and former Pension Minister, I hope Ros’ replies will be of particular interest Continue reading →

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Why your pension records – like your medicals – should be yours by right

Posted on August 28, 2020 by henry tapper

This blog sets out for the first time a fundamental right of the retirement saver, a right to see their pension record in a digitally readable format. Continue reading →

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What we don’t consider matters

Posted on August 21, 2020 by henry tapper

Listening to Victoria Derbyshire talking about domestic abuse on the radio this morning , I was struck by one insight. When asked why domestic abuse had been such a low priority at the start of lockdown she observed that as … Continue reading →

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Prem Sikka’s peerage – its value to accounting , governance and pensions

Posted on August 2, 2020 by henry tapper

Prem Sikka, too, is an appointment to be welcomed as strengthening the Lords pensions team. Read his monograph from 2006, “Pensions crisis a failure of public policymaking”, https://t.co/xBHu7dgVKJ. Chapter 2: THE PENSIONS CRISIS: FACT AND FICTION explains the valuation and… … Continue reading →

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The mess we’re in (pt.1) and how we got here.

Posted on July 26, 2020 by henry tapper

Iain  Clacher and Con Keating Since their heyday in the 1990s, UK occupational DB schemes have been winding up at a rate of about one every two days. Their replacement, DC schemes, are a poor substitute; they are tax-advantaged savings … Continue reading →

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Is HMRC handing the low-paid pension saver a Pyrrhic victory?

Posted on July 22, 2020 by henry tapper

The government has today published a ‘call for evidence’ on how to address the different outcomes for lower earners, depending on whether their pension schemes use the relief at source (RAS) or net pay method of tax relief. The call … Continue reading →

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