Tag Archives: Employment

This scaremongering on auto-enrolment has to stop!

Scaremongering Scaremongering sells newspapers and we love to be afraid. It is easy to write stories that play on our fears, because they are the ones we want to read. But that doesn’t make scaremongering alright, just as it doesn’t … Continue reading

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How safe is your workplace pension?

The opportunity to improve pension fund charging. Let us pause for a moment and consider what we are buying into when we set up a workplace pension for our staff. On the face of it, nobody enrolled into a workplace … Continue reading

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The pension troublemaker!

I love the Pension Regulator- they are definitely our most proactive financial services governor. They are fighting the fight on a number of fronts- but chiefly to make auto-enrolment a success. So when they make an announcement -it’s worth listening … Continue reading

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Why I’m backing the master trust assurance framework

Back in May 2014, the Pension Regulator launched on an unsuspecting world the ICAEW’s Technical Release “Assurance reporting on master trusts”. At the time I was dismissive of this document and the Master Trust Assurance Framework (MAF). Write in haste , … Continue reading

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NEST report and accounts; £400m and counting

The publication of NEST’s 2015 report and accounts yesterday has some good news and some not such good news. The good news is that nothing seriously went wrong last year, there are now some 14,000 employers using NEST for all … Continue reading

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Lassitude or laxitude – 100 days of pension freedoms

“Lassitude” or “Laxitude” – what’s your judgement on how we’re carrying on? Or is this all just fine? Lassitude is a “proper” word that describes a lazy behaviour resulting from world weariness, laxitude is a made up word that describes … Continue reading

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Pensioner First

A consistent theme of the pension reforms we have witnessed over the past five years has been a focus on the consumer of pension savings – the pensioner. Set in the wider context of welfare policy, the proposals to re-align … Continue reading

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We had it coming!

I haven’t read the reaction of the pension hierarchy to the Treasury’s consultation on the future of pension tax relief – I don’t have to. Steve Bee’s tweet “I don’t want to spend the rest of my time on this … Continue reading

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Making social media work for us

One of the things that social media does, is blur the line between work and play. The distinction is one that employers , regulators and brands attempt to manage, often with arcane rules that make them a laughing stock to their … Continue reading

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The future of pension regulation – Andrew Tarrant

Andrew Tarrant was a personal advisor to Gregg McClymont in the previous parliamentary term. A Kiwi lawyer he has the distinction of having sung in New Zealand’s only serious punk band. I have had the privilege of reading this substantial piece of … Continue reading

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