Mental health and MSK; something employers and employees want to WorkWell

Posted on January 24, 2026 by henry tapper

Growing productivity through working well

Colin Haines is bang on the money . It’s not just about profit, it’s the salary and pension that’s being lost because sick people are unable to contribute . Here is his post on WorkWell.

What is MSK? The term musculoskeletal (MSK), refers to the way your muscles, bones and joints work together for movement. Good MSK health can help your employees do their daily tasks easily.

The Government’s WORKWELL initiative is available from this link.

This is what the Government are saying (work and pensions)

Up to 250,000 more people with health conditions will receive support to stay in or return to work, as a groundbreaking programme proven to transform lives and boost living standards is to be rolled out across England.

  • WorkWell, a proven health-and-employment support service, will be rolled out across England to help people with health conditions stay in or return to work.
  • The expansion follows a successful pilot supporting over 25,000 people with tailored physical and mental health support.
  • Part of the Government’s Plan for Change to break down barriers to opportunity, boost living standards and support economic growth.

Up to 250,000 more people with health conditions will receive support to stay in or return to work, as a groundbreaking programme proven to transform lives and boost living standards is to be rolled out across England.

WorkWell provides personalised, early help for people struggling with their health — connecting them to local services such as physiotherapy, counselling and workplace adjustments. WorkWell forms part of the Pathways to Work offer, created to help disabled people and those with health conditions move from welfare into work and provide a joined-up support system for local residents.

WorkWell is designed differently by acting as an early-intervention, health-led service that is locally designed and integrates with local NHS, council, and community services to prevent people from leaving work due to health issues or supporting them back to work quickly if they fall out.

Following the success of the WorkWell pilot – a pioneering health and employment support programme in 15 areas – it will be rolled out across all of England, backed by up to £259 million over the next three years.

Over 25,000 people have been supported to stay in or re-enter work during the pilot phase with 48% reporting mental illness as their main barrier to employment, and 59% out of work at their first appointment.

With the right support, people can stay in work and move off from welfare into work. WorkWell is one example of this and is supported by other programmes including Connect to Work and Pathways to Work Advisers to help people stay in or return to work.

WorkWell brings together health and employment support such as physiotherapy and counselling, workplace adjustments and return-to-work plans.

The expansion is part of the work the Government is doing to bring down NHS waiting lists and tackle the inherited issue of 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness – the highest in the G7.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Pat McFadden said:

Too often, people with health conditions are signed off sick without the support they need to stay in or return to work—and that doesn’t help anyone.

WorkWell changes that by giving people the help they need. Our pilot provided support to 25,000 people to remain in their jobs and helped others get back to work.

Now we’re rolling this out nationwide—because supporting people to stay healthy and employed benefits individuals, businesses, and our economy.

The national rollout is expected to ease pressure on the NHS, reducing demand for GP appointments by ensuring more people get the health and work support they need through WorkWell.

Fit notes are currently issued more than 11 million times a year, and WorkWell aims to ensure people get help earlier and through the right route — freeing up GP time for patients who need it most.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting said:

No-one should have to choose between a job they love and their health. WorkWell’s national expansion shows this government is modernising a system that has written people off for too long.

We’re issuing millions of fit notes a year dismissing people as simply “not fit for work”. By combining health support with employment support in local communities, WorkWell can give people back their confidence, their purpose and their wellbeing.

Crucially, it also eases pressure on GPs and cuts waiting lists so we can build an NHS fit for the future.

Participants do not need to be claiming any Government benefits and will receive personalised support from a Work and Health Coach to understand their current health and social barriers to work and draw up a plan to help them overcome them.

Participants will access services through multiple routes including employer referrals, GP referrals, Jobcentre Plus, local services, or self-referral, creating a ‘no wrong door’ approach to support.

Services provided through the programme vary locally, but can include:

  • Physiotherapy for back pain and mobility issues
  • Mental health interventions including counselling and psychological support
  • Workplace adjustment advice to help employers accommodate health conditions
  • Ongoing health condition management

Sadie, who was supported by the WorkWell programme, said:

I was under a lot of stress from work and wasn’t feeling supported in managing my work life balance.

I went to my doctors, as I wanted to be proactive rather than going off sick and they recommended the WorkWell programme.

I was contacted by WorkWell and started sessions with them. I explained what I was experiencing, and the support I felt I needed. My WorkWell adviser set me targets and pointed me in the right direction of some activities that I could do. It really helped me to have the consistency of someone to speak to and have someone push me in the right direction to be supported.

My work could see that I was trying my best to stay in work and get the support that I needed. I’m still with my employer, I’m focusing on my health, I’ve got so much more work life balance, and it started with WorkWell’s support being in my corner.

Shaw Trust Chief Executive Officer, Chris Luck, said:

We’ve seen first-hand the difference WorkWell can make in our work supporting over 5,700 people in North West and North Central London, as part of the initial pilot programme.

Key to its success is meeting people where they are – they can access support in person, over the phone, via video call or even in their local café. It joins up work and health support, with employment coaches working closely with mental and physical health professionals, to make sure people get the help they need.

All of this makes it really easy for people to access the right support, at the right time, to help them find the job that’s right for them.

We welcome the expansion of the service to support people nationwide, and look forward to seeing its future impact.

WorkWell will be available through NHS Integrated Care Boards working in partnership with Local Authorities, Jobcentre Plus, and community organisations to deliver locally designed services that meet specific community needs.

Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation said:

The national rollout of the government’s new health and employment support programme, WorkWell, across every ICB is welcome news. Health leaders know all too well that good work and good health are two sides of the same coin, and supporting people to stay in or return to work is an important step in helping to reverse the rates of health-related economic inactivity in England and in turn reducing pressure on the NHS as well as the economy.

We know that through the NHS Work and Health Network – NHS Confederation – a joint government and NHS Confederation initiative – progress is being made to strengthen the health service’s role in tackling economic inactivity. The national WorkWell programme will further help systems to build on this momentum and deliver on the government’s 10-year health plan commitment for every ICB to establish outcome targets to reduce economic inactivity.

The national rollout follows Sir Charlie Mayfield’s Keep Britain Working Review, which highlighted the urgent need for early intervention in workplace health support, while 1,000 Work Coaches have been redeployed to provide personalised support for disabled people and those with health conditions.

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Two Keirs; one issue ; 100 years ; free leaseholders

Posted on January 24, 2026 by henry tapper

Harry is so good here , I cannot but give him another chance to explain why we need to free leaseholders from unearned ground rent and other iniquities that leaseholders suffer

If you have 54 seconds of your life to spare, press on this clip and remind yourself just why we need Keirs to be consistent over a century!

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I wish I could visit America again; but I can’t – not at present!

Posted on January 24, 2026 by henry tapper

Most American citizens are folks you would like. Most American citizens welcome individuals who want to come to America legally, and who want to become Americans. We would like to have more who are interested in becoming Americans, in pursuing the American dream.

This is my correspondent Jack, writing to me at the end of a week which has tested our patience with a certain strand of American behaviour demonstrated by America’s president and his entourage. I have spent a lot of my “holiday time!” in America and some work time, which seemed like a holiday (New Orleans and Boston). I have friends in California and New York, I listen to Dylan and Springsteen a lot, I admire America but I won’t go there today. I think Jack picked this up, read what he says.

We are not so hot on people who come here but who do not want to become Americans, who don’t invest here but remit as much as possible back to their country of origin.

If you look, over the past 80+ years, you will see Americans at work in other countries trying to help – directly, hands on as well as indirectly, via foreign aid, aid after a catastrophe, etc. Americans are very generous.

Easy example is not President Obama, who failed when it came to the middle East, and north Africa, and in various other international relationships and endeavors.

It was President Obama who pulled up the ladder to curtail refugees from Cuba (one foot dry).

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/12/509575935/obama-administration-ends-refugee-policy-that-favored-cubans

It was President Obama who curtailed refugees from Iraq.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/25/presidential-proclamation-suspension-entry-aliens-subject-united-nations

It was President Carter who curtailed refugees from Haiti and Cuba

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/carter-immigration-legacy

It was Democrats, specifically Jerry Brown, who resisted refugees from South Vietnam:

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/apr/27/as-south-vietnam-fell-a-democratic-governor-turned/

It was FDR who refused entry of Jewish refugees on the St. Louis – many who later died in the Holocaust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

It was only the idiot President Biden who opened the gates and let in anyone who could manage to get here, including hundreds of thousands of gotaways (folks who would have been returned immediately had they been caught or encountered CBP).  Over 400 people came to America who were admitted even though they were on America’s terror watch list!

The easy examples in recent memory would be George H. W. Bush, when the wall came down (and his support for Lech Walesa/Pope John Paul II, not only when it came to German reunification, but his reticence and decision not to take advantage of the decline in the Eastern bloc); and his son, George W. Bush, in his efforts to rid Africa of the scourge of AIDS and other diseases.

See: https://www.bushcenter.org/publications/celebrating-22-years-of-the-presidents-emergency-plan-for-aids-relief

For comparison, seldom would you see folks from other countries come to America to help out when we have a disaster, a hurricane, a California fire, a tornado in the midwest, etc. So, most folks don’t encounter Americans in their everyday lives or at the worst time of their lives.

Did you know that, of all the people who are citizens or lawfully present in America, that the percentage who are foreign born has again reached an all time high of nearly 15%, 1 in 7 people walking our streets (highest to include our first census in 1790)? https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time  Add in the folks who are not lawfully present, and that number changes to almost 20%, almost 1 in 5.

Unfortunately, the percentage of Americans who you (or anyone) would like declines precipitously when it comes to folks we elect to office – both our federal government and our state governments.

There are exceptions of course, some exceptional people make their way into government office. Most important, when it comes to American politicians, try to ignore what they say, watch what they do.

This is a post to me of a republican who would like me to like him and republicans and that is something that I have never thought of doing. I have never thought of there being a sour side of Obama , Jerry Brown and FDR, I have never thought much about Biden being an idiot.

What I think about is Gaza and Iraq and Indonesia and large parts of Africa when i think of misrule and ill-applied violence. I think too of ICE. In short I think of war-making by the American Government today and I hate to think of my friends who are living in a country they must be hating. I suspect Jack is hating his Government even though it acts in the name of republicans.

I wish Jack well, I wish my American friends well and I wish my British friends who have emigrated to America well too. Nothing is sorted by being a republican or a democrat, what is needed is a love of people, the kind of love I hear from Springsteen and Dylan and I remind myself of, when I think back to my holidays. I hope that I will have holidays in America again.

I think of Johnny Cash and all who came before him, of the South, of blues , of bluegrass and of country music and I know that America is intrinsically good.

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A new TPR? It needs a refresh and these projects to get going!

Posted on January 23, 2026 by henry tapper

There are a number of initiatives going on at The Pensions Regulator. Yesterday I contributed to one of them – the “Vision” that is being lead by Elizabeth Renshaw-Ames

You can read the project that the “Vision” is on this link.  It is part of a move within TPR to turn itself into a prudential regulator like the FCA. I support that move,

I am not a trustee and though my partner is , we are not going to the events TPR are organising next week which are exclusive to pension trustees.

I suggested that TPR listened to what Baroness Altmann proposed as an amendment to the Pension Schemes Bill. Her amendment would make trustees pay attention to all sides of the argument by looking at the numbers laid out by their actuaries in TAS300 (V2). I have sent TPR’s Vision people this account of the debate in the House of Lords

The past is where the money is , the past is our DB heritage and though DC master trusts and a few occupational schemes with substantial DC exist, they are little more than savings schemes. If TPR want the future to be about pensions they are going to keep our pension savings buying pensions, the old phrase was “money purchase” as savings bought annuities, this can still be the way forward if we revert to flex and fix with “fix” being annuity.

The alternative is CDC and this is a second project in the hands of TPR that I’d like to be a part of.

A third element of TPR’s development is “value for money”, a concept that needs development itself. For many people, the big question is whether they are getting value for money from their pension saving- which is currently into DC savings plans and increasingly master trust based plans (the heritage being increasingly GPPs).

 

If there is anything going on in DC pension saving, it is going on in this work which is joint with the FCA. It will need to answer the “comparison” questions that people as employers (paying) or employees (saving) will have about funding retirement. Just what will we get as “pensions” and what’s best value. The Government has made this statement which throws a spanner in the VFM framework consultation in my opinion.

An uplift that sounds like improved value for money to me!

What next?

Finally, I’d pick out of TPR’s initiatives their innovation support

On August 3rd, TPR will open its doors to organisations that want to get a CDC scheme authorised. This will not be a retirement CDC scheme but a whole of life scheme. So CDC will move to its next stage by throwing its doors open to all employers who want a go at improving pensions by up to 60% (on a VFM comparison.

TPR’s “innovation” is important to me, as it is helping CDC schemes happen this year. This will bring real VFM to our pensions.

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Should people use their pension savings to buy their home?

Posted on January 23, 2026 by henry tapper

This week is an important one for Nest Insight and its year long project that links pension saving with our house holding. Here is the super short promotion. It is followed by the blog and then the report. I think that’s a good way of sharing research.

Here is what Nest Insight  say in a report that few of us will have time to read in full. I think it is right that we are left with what they have set out below.

Drawing conclusions: Should people be able to use their pension savings to buy a home?

Read our report: Using pension savings to support home ownership (PDF)

Our year-long study brings evidence to the debate on linking housing and pensions – highlighting potential benefits for some, risks for many, and caution over unintended consequences for the housing and pensions systems.

Over the past twelve months, Nest Insight has conducted an extensive programme of research into a question for which there is growing debate yet very little UK-specific evidence: Should people be allowed to use pension savings towards home ownership in the UK, and could it help support financial security among low- to moderate-income households?

The problem behind the question is clear: industry and policy research consistently finds that housing security is a cornerstone of financial and wider wellbeing yet across all working-age groups, fewer households own their own home than those of the same age twenty years ago. The rationale for using pension savings as a solution is less clear cut. For some, it has intuitive appeal: by making funds more flexible and available for a deposit, a pension access scheme could help people overcome a major barrier to buying a home. For others, there are clear risks: increasing demand for housing without a commensurate increase in supply could push house prices higher, while potentially compromising pension saving and retirement outcomes at the same time.

“I feel like I move between good and bad idea frequently, it does have some potential but I worry that it feels like gambling with the future.”
(Recent homebuyer and Nest Insight research participant, UK)

We’ve recently concluded our analysis and this article gives an insight into what we found. The goal of the work has not been to argue for or against the idea but rather to provide evidence to ensure a more informed debate. Over the course of the year, we’ve consulted widely with experts from the housing and pensions industries and with the public themselves through surveys and a discussion forum. We have undertaken data analysis and modelling and looked at what we can learn from other countries, developing not only evidence that reflects both sides of the debate, but also a series of important questions that remain to be answered about any potential model.

Overall, our findings do not point to a definitive answer. We find evidence that supports some of the reasons people are attracted to the idea, primarily at household level. However, we also find evidence which suggests that implementing such a scheme could involve complexity, dependencies, and the risk of unintended consequences which together warrant significant caution and further thought, across both the housing and pension systems.

Our research addressed three key questions:

  • Would people be better off if they use their pension savings to buy a home?
  • How many people might be able to use their pension to buy a home?
  • How do people feel about a pension access scheme, and would they use it?[1]

A pension access scheme could bring greater financial security to a relatively small group, with more complex benefits and wider trade-offs for a much larger group.

Throughout the work, we found an important distinction between a relatively small group of households who might need to use a pension access scheme for a deposit (those who might never otherwise be able to buy a home); and a much larger group who might choose to use their pension to supplement or substitute existing cash savings (but could otherwise go on to buy a home without it). For the first group, a pension access scheme might increase home ownership, for the latter group it might accelerate it, but differentiating between them is difficult.

  • For those with no other route to home ownership, a pension access scheme could mean higher disposable income after housing costs in retirement, and greater property wealth compared to renting through working and later life, even if access involved withdrawing some pension savings.
  • For those who might use pension savings to accelerate home ownership, buying a home earlier, or using pension savings to access lower mortgage rates through a larger deposit could bring some financial benefits in working life. But were people to withdraw pension savings for a deposit, it could also mean reaching retirement with smaller pension pots, unless any withdrawal is offset through higher contributions or change in circumstances.

Recently, a number of proposals linking housing and pensions have emerged in the UK and further afield, as well as wider proposals to support financial security both within and alongside the pension system. As this analysis is the first of its kind in the UK, we based it on the UK pension system in its current form. As a baseline scenario, we looked at a scheme that could allow people to withdraw part of their savings; but we also considered a pension access scheme that allows people to rebuild their savings or leave them invested, such as pension pledging or pension loan schemes. Relative to a withdrawal-based model, these approaches could address concerns around smaller pension pots at retirement, but may be more complex to implement.

The design of a pension access scheme and the lending landscape in which it is used could determine who benefits, but also raises the potential for unintended consequences…

… and designing a scheme to target those groups who stand to gain the most while also minimising unintended consequences could be very difficult, for the reasons set out below.

It’s challenging to estimate how many people would use a pension access scheme to buy a home, but our analysis suggests that those who truly need the option to do so are likely to be a relatively small group – at least in part because in a relatively immature Auto Enrolment system, many pots are just too small to make a material difference under this kind of change. More broadly, it could be most effective at helping lower-income couples and single-income households with higher earnings into home ownership, particularly those who rent privately, are over the age of 35, and will not receive help towards a deposit from friends and family. It also has the potential to help older renters, among whom many have owned a home in the past but lost it due to life events. But a pension access scheme could also be used in much higher numbers by people who simply haven’t been able to buy a home yet, including above average earners and those with help towards a deposit, without substantially increasing long-term home ownership among these groups. Our modelling also found that:

  • External factors such as smaller deposit requirements have a greater impact on the potential reach of a pension access scheme than design factors like the share of pension savings people could use. However, pension savings will grow under the automatic enrolment system, meaning that they could make a greater difference to more people in the future than we find today.
  • Much like today’s lending landscape, more prudent versions of the scheme would likely restrict take-up among low- to moderate-income households and those who need the most help to buy a home, without significantly affecting options for higher income groups.
  • We found that the more flexibility there might be, the larger the groups became, raising the risk of wider implications for house prices and pension funds in the event that large volumes of people might use their pension towards home ownership, particularly if not everyone needed to.

Public opinion towards the idea is divided and nuanced, suggesting that even if people could use a pension access scheme, many would not choose to do so.  

Overall, people told us they were more likely to be supportive of a pension access scheme if it might be of help to them, especially those who wanted more flexibility around their own savings. But even among this group, people were worried that a pension access scheme could undermine the security of pension saving while not effectively tackling the causes of low housing security and create new expectations that could erode their retirement income in the future. Some told us that it would incentivise them to save more into their pension, while others told us it could make them complacent about saving for a deposit outside their pension.

We also heard that lack of deposit is only one of the barriers people face to buying a home. Mortgage affordability, credit history and income variability are also major obstacles to buying a home that a pension access scheme may not help. A pension access scheme could also exclude those without enough saved in defined contribution pensions, including many public sector workers, and workers who don’t contribute regularly to pensions, perhaps because they are self-employed on low incomes.

Significant further questions remain around the viability and overall benefits of the approach, while there also needs to be a continued focus on those who may never be able to buy a home at all.

On one hand, a pension access scheme has the potential, to some degree, to reduce inequalities in home ownership, address the challenges of saving for a deposit for some groups, improve financial security in retirement for households for whom it really makes the difference between buying and not, and boost financial security in working life for those who might otherwise take longer to save. But it also brings complex risks and trade-offs, with no certainty that it could reach those who need the most help within the time they have left to buy a home, and without unintended consequences for the housing and pension systems.

To conclude this project, we also focus on a third, important group of people: those who will never be able to buy a home of their own, yet still need stability, safety, security, affordability and peace of mind from where they live. Our final output from this research will look at the role that institutional pension assets might play in supporting these people in the UK housing system, and will be available in the early Spring.

You can read Nest Insight’s report: Using pension savings to support home ownership (PDF)

Anna Brain, Research Lead at Nest Insight

[1] Throughout the work, we use the term pension access scheme to refer to the potential use of pension savings towards home ownership. This includes versions that might allow people to withdraw savings, pledge savings and or take a loan from their pension.

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Thought leadership on pensions from Mark Carney and John Mitchem

Posted on January 23, 2026 by henry tapper

 

John Mitchem

I don’t suppose many in Britain listened to Mark Carney speak at Davos but this post makes me want to. Firstly for the regard we have for Mark Carney as a former Governor of the Bank of England , secondly for standing up to the attempts to annexe his and neighbouring companies by Donald Trump.

Mark Carney

Now there is a third reason I will hold Carney in the highest regard and John Mitchem is to be thanked for bringing Carney’s remarks on pensions at Davos to our attention

We hold Australia in high regard for its Supers but there is another former colonial nation that makes a commonwealth of pension peers and there is much about Canada that reminds me of what the Pension Schemes Bill aspires to. Like us, Canada has a collective past and like us it is funding pensions from private and public purses collectively.

Thank you to John Mitchem for including important statistics of the make up of Canadian pension funds. Many of these are not properly understood by me and I hope that their relevance will be properly explained in comments – or by email – or by blogs – if anyone wants to make their voices heard in that way (you can blog anonymously).

Is this the first time ever that a head of state has cited well-funded pensions as a geoeconomic, even geostrategic asset?

I wonder if this is something that our Government would like to do. Whether Torsten Bell or Rachel Reeves will devote time when they have public platforms, to explain not just the future but our pension past.

The past year has seen the dismissal of our funded pension past questioned. There have been people who have put their heels in the ground and asked that their pension schemes be regarded as Carney regards Canadian collective schemes, not for disposal to insurance but as a means to make money for those who are in them , for their sponsors and indeed for the nation that has subsidised their accumulation through tax relief.

This week I have been following the House of Lords and those who have Carney’s vision, I have spent time with those who sit within TPR with “Vision” and I have talked with the DWP about how we can revive collective endeavour within pensions. I have often thought of Canada, a country whose pensions I have admired through friends such as Andy Young who as much as any in the past quarter of a century, has kept hope alive within Government.

John Mitchem is American and brave to praise Carney at this time. But I am grateful for him bringing Carney’s comments to light on both sides of the pond. I will make sure to listen to Carney’s speech over the weekend and hope to take inspiration. I hope that Carney is quoted by our leaders and that we can find a platform for Mitchem in this country.

An afterthought from Naomi

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Pensions are important to employers

Posted on January 22, 2026 by henry tapper

This is a warning from the Pensions Regulator

This is the result of a survey by Barnett Waddingham about what matters to employers when it comes to rewarding staff. It’s #1 and 2 in the priorities but let’s be clear, it’s not pensions that employers consider they are paying, it’s pension savings and contributions. Employers don’t need a stick , they need a pat on the back! 

Barnett Waddingham partner and head of platform and benefits Julia Turney said:

“It’s clear the past year has made employers realise that pension provision beyond the bare minimum has become a vital part of a well-rounded employee value proposition – elevating it from a compliance task to a strategic priority”.

It’s nice to consider “pension provision” is a strategic priority which may make CDC an important feature for employers going forward.

I suspect that a lot of employers outside the small number who speak to actuarial consultants like Barnett Waddingham are mystified by what their contributions go towards.

If not a pension – what?

81% of employers see helping their staff understand what is going on with the money paid into DC workplace pensions is noble. But I suspect that explaining the endgame as Corporate Adviser’s “Workplace Pensions into Retirement” lays it out, is a little daunting for all but a few daunty experts!

My heart goes out to the 1.5m employers in Britain who think they are providing staff with pensions because they are paying for them , but find they have nothing but pots to offer staff when they leave retirement.

Pensions are important but…

Staff aren’t getting pensions even when they leave work to retire!

We need a new way to think about and talk about what those contributions are doing.

The pension dashboard will explain pots as pensions but they won’t do the conversion.

It is time we had a new way of doing things and think about pensions from the day we start saving. We need to build up private pensions throughout life as we do the state pension and as those in public sector pensions.

Pensions are important but we aren’t getting them any more – certainly not in the workplace if we work in the private sector.

The lack of alignment from employers who think more than 80% of staff are getting a pension from them and the reality of what workers end up with is alarming. Employers do not need warnings that they’ll be fined , they need pensions to go to their staff!

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Raising standards of Trusteeship and Scheme Governance (with TPR)

Posted on January 22, 2026 by henry tapper

I am embarking on something that I feel a little nervous about. I will be having a conversation about raising standards of Trusteeship and Scheme Governance with Elizabeth Renshaw-Ames and my partner Stella Eastwood, both of whom know a lot about Trusteeship and Scheme Governance, considerably more than I know, or ever will. I wasn’t built that way, though I do think I’ve done something to help in this space

My worry is that trusteeship and governance is full of snobbery where people who want to be considered top of the tree manage to show off their superiority by becoming wise about rules.

So I am going to have to get myself out of a hump and do some work on getting better governance and trusteeship- I want to be part of a proprietor of an occupational pension scheme and though I will not be a trustee, I need to make sure our trustees are as good as trustees can get at governance

 

I haven’t had much to do with Elizabeth for many years but she and I will be having a conversation this morning and Stella will be with me. She is a trustee and has the built in skills of understanding governance as part of here DNA.

You will note that this is an area currently dominated by women!

TPR are calling on people who are interested in getting better pensions to comment on a consultation. It opened before Christmas and closes in March, details are here

I hope that I will be better placed to ensure the trustees in the scheme I want the Pension Regulator to authorise later this year.

The scheme I want to launch will operate under CDC which I suppose qualifies as facing the challenges of a modern pension scheme operating in a modern pension system.

That Elizabeth wants a meeting with me is either because she is interested in my views or that she is worried that I am looking to cause trouble. I may cause trouble without knowing I am trying which may be a third thing that the meeting may bring forth!

But there is a paper that I have read and am looking forward to discuss and – if there is reason for me to attend it, there is meeting at the end of the month.

As the “Vision” of the Pension Regulator for getting Trusteeship and Governance on a surer footing, is open, I’m attaching it to this page.

 

 

 

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Greenland – the mythic island that is large and white!

Posted on January 22, 2026 by henry tapper

When I left college one summer I went to Iceland and met a girl whose Dad owned a trawler that caught big fish off the coast of Greenland. I did some trips on the boat as an extended part of the family and despite being British and there recently having been a cod war!

Greenland was a dangerous place to go ashore and the boat had a stash of penicillin for those who’d been with Greenlandic girls who met them for sex. My memories of Greenland in the early 1980s were of a country that had connections with sailors , with American who had soldiers and with Denmark who owned them.

It was a place where Inuit men farmed for seals and lived a little in the way of benefits and something off their women. To suppose that Greenland is an easy place today is difficult for me to imagine, there are less people living in the world’s largest island than in the Isle of Man.

But we were always aware that it held the keys to other places. The Viking stories suggest that it was called “Green” to get those from north west Europe to venture west of Iceland , to get to Vineland which is generally thought Newfoundland.

Many Norse confused Iceland with Greenland and so it seems does Trump, he has fallen for all the Norse lies but most especially Greenland

So Greenland is a lie and so it seems to remain, Nowadays the Greenland lie as promulgated yesterday is  that it was owned by America (it has always been Danish) and that today it is surrounded by Chinese and Russians boats that will move in and steal its huge natural resources that will appear from under the ice as it melts.

It will be owned again by America, in Donald Trump’s imagination, and just how strange that imagination is , was available to people who tuned into his hour of fantasy in Davos.

It sent my imagination back to the Greenland that I never landed on (I was terrified of venereal disease). It was a place surrounded by whales and dolphins and huge halibut and cod and haddock and of course seals who keep everybody warm.

Suddenly it is a huge island which if owned by America would presumably make America bigger than any Western country and capable of taking advantage of an ice cap it could consider itself capable of melting with its huge use of power.

When I was in my late teenage years, I thought of Iceland and Greenland as they were when the Sagas were written. I read English at university and believed that the English language was more nobly derived from these Sagas and Icelandic than French and Latin.

Now I am in my mid sixties and have lived a life apart from Greenland, until these past few weeks. The Vinland Saga is a myth that grips the mind of Trump, who has much in common with Viking warlords! I fear he will find Greenland no more hospitable that they did, despite its name!

If you want something a little more reliable than my memories, you might try this. – the Vinland Sagas.

The picture above and below is what’s thought the roots and routes of Sagas

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Why CDC schemes need to be large to be fair and offer freedom

Posted on January 22, 2026 by henry tapper

 

Ros Altmann
Henry Tapper

I had an interesting conversation with Ros Altmann yesterday evening. She explained her reservation with a CDC scheme’s fairness being its inability to deal with the unexpected behaviour of members coming to retirement who prefer not to have a CDC pension increasing with inflation and lasting as long as they do.

I can imagine many people facing their future with a wish to have flexibility for a number of reasons but most obviously because they are doubtful they will live long enough. I lay in a corridor in a Slough A&E for more than 24 hours earlier this month , pondering my longevity – it is an excusable thing to think about and people who lose faith in pensions and chose freedom from pensions are exercising a freedom that JS Mill would have promoted!

If you are running a small CDC scheme, where the person knocking on the exit door will demand a large proportion of the scheme, I can see there being a problem treating him fairly and giving him a cash equivalent with ease.

Which is why CDC schemes do not work for a few people and certainly not for individuals who own much of the rights of the scheme. If you have worked with small self administered pension schemes, you would not consider them CDC schemes without having a lot of confidence in the longevity of your members (or at least the confidence that they understand how sharing works from all members).

There was, on Martin Lewis’s show this Tuesday, a case of someone trying to get out of a DB pension scheme because they knew they could do better with freedoms with their short life expectancy. This was a tale of poor administration and poor communication.

So CDC schemes must have clear rules, clear communication and good rules. This is discussed in a recent paper by Hymans Robertson where one of the “myths” is that people can’t get out of CDC when they know pension freedoms are better for them

You can download the “myth busting” from this link.

Here is how Hymans Robertson explain CDC to employers (on this)

The secret is size

We all know that where there is a large crowd, there will be accidents. Go to football matches and there are ambulances awaiting outside the stands, where the crowd is big, to ensure that accidents can be dealt with quickly and easily.

Of course you need proper governance to make sure that crowds don’t get into trouble (we learned that in football in the 1980s). Size can be dangerous if you don’t manage crowd risks.

We need to have administration within CDC schemes that follows the same principles but the first principle is that the care works where there are enough to share. The sharing is fair where those following the obvious route – taking a pension for life – are not impacted by those who want freedom (for whatever reason).

To follow my football analogy, the vast majority of football fans will go to games week after week over time, the majority of pensioners in a CDC scheme will get paid every month, but some will leave to die, and some will leave to do something very different with their money.

But where the crowd is big enough, then the scheme can sustain demands on its liquidity and will not see its strategy having to alter because a group of several, leave because pensions don’t work for them.

Con Keating makes an additional point in comments, concerning lines of credit that can help where large numbers choose to move from a CDC scheme by taking out a line of credit.

Of course it makes more sense that there is a sense of mutuality between all in the CDC and this is helped by employers feeling mutuality with other employers as well as members feeling a part of a common crowd (think football). If CDC is to work , it depends on size and common purpose and it needs people acting as trustees who understand the needs of the members as a whole but also the needs of those who are different. There must be rules and the rules must be known by members or explainable to those who have questions.

There is never going to be a system of perfect sharing. The State Pension has winners and losers and this is explained as social insurance. CDC schemes will get less out than they put in for reasons of health. There will be others who will outlive almost anyone. There will be some who will walk away from a pension who live a long time too! But ultimately we have to have a pension scheme that is reasonably fair to all and most importantly can be explained easily to those who need to understand their choices when it matters to them.

For most, that key point is in the years leading up to retirement, the years I am in at present, it was a good discussion with Ros Altmann for obvious reasons!

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