People’s Pensions

Conference Season - talking policy and politics with the PLSA

It’s conference season. A busy time fore those wanting to bend politicians’ ears about the way forward for the pensions industry.
Our very own pensions guru Phil Brown has been doing the rounds – and more often than not he’s bumped into Nigel Peaple from the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association.
So ahead of the PLSA’s very own conference, Phil met up with Nigel to hear what he’s been lobbying about. They also discussed the mood of the Conservative and Labour conferences as we head towards a general election year.

Value for Money - and how to measure it.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple measure of whether a pension scheme was worth investing in? It’s not just a case of which scheme charges the least. Quality of service is also important and so is the performance of investments.
All this is the aim of the Value For Money framework. The government hopes the VFM measure will help those running pension schemes to improve, encouraging competition and driving under-performing schemes from the market.
Which all sounds like good news. But coming up with the right way to measure VFM is a hot topic. Which is why Phil Brown met up with Darren Philp, policy expert and self-confessed pension geek.

Small Pots and how to consolidate them

One of the side-effects of automatic enrolment has been the creation of millions of small, ‘deferred’ pension pots scattered across the pensions landscape. With the average person working more than 10 jobs in a lifetime, this problem is only going to get bigger – much bigger.
In the recent Mansion House reforms, the government asked for responses on its initial plan. It’s opted for the multiple consolidators model – where small pots could be automatically transferred into large approved schemes. The government plans to set up a delivery group by the end of the year.
How might all this work….and is it good news for savers?
Here’s Phil Brown with his panel of expert - Zoe Alexander, director of strategy and corporate affairs at Nest; Lizzy Holliday, director of public affairs and policy at NOW:; Ian Digby, director of policy and regulation at Smart Pension and Sarah Luheshi, the deputy director at Pensions Policy Institute.

Mansion House Revisited: CDCs and DB Superfunds

Spare a thought for people working in the pensions industry as they try to digest not one, but ten policy documents from the government, all released at the same time.
On our last podcast we discussed some of the main ideas of the Mansion House reforms - merging smaller funds, securing better value for money for members, and investing more in UK business.
Phil’s back with Tom McPhail and Charlotte Moore to examine three papers we didn’t touch last time.
First, we have CDCs - a new alternative to traditional pension schemes where savings are all pooled into a collective fund.
Second – is there a future for DB superfunds, championed by the Tony Blair Institute?
And finally – should there be consolidation in the Local Government Pension Scheme, which has 6 million members in 86 separate funds….

The Mansion House Reforms

It’s been a big week for the pensions industry with the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s speech at the Mansion House.
The Mansion House reforms are aimed at getting more money from pension funds into high growth companies. He says this could unlock 50 billion pounds into private equities and early-stage businesses.
Jeremy Hunt also spoke about the government’s wish to merge smaller inefficient funds and he reminded everyone that any investments should be in the best interests of the ordinary people contributing to pension fund.
So, is this a revolution or a damp squib? Here’s Phil Brown and his two expert guests - pensions and investments specialist Charlotte Moore, and leading pensions expert and media commentator Tom McPhail.

Life Sciences - a good investment for Pension Funds?

Pension providers always need to be on the lookout for the best way to invest their members’ money. Pick the right investments, and people will get larger pension pots when they come to retire. Of course, get it wrong, and the opposite happens.
Well, there’s a new industry which wants to attract more investment from pension funds - the life sciences industry – that’s the industry which comes up with new drugs to keep us healthy and which proved its worth during the Covid pandemic.
The UK has a great track record of coming up with ideas, but there’s a lack of financial backing, forcing start-up companies to go abroad.
Today Phil Brown talks to a life science expert Dr Dan Mahony, to ask whether pension providers are letting down UK life science companies by being too slow to get onboard.

What pensions providers can learn from behavioural science

Have you heard about anchoring bias or loss aversion?
They’re two concepts from the world of behavioural science. In a nutshell, it means that you can influence people’s decisions without them even knowing it. Which is why many businesses are using those insights to get people to do things they want them to do.
On the podcast today Phil Brown will be hearing how pensions providers could learn a thing or two. Like how to subtly persuade people to put more into their pension pots.
He’s joined by a real expert in the field…Elizabeth Costa, the Managing Director of the Behavioural Insights Team in the UK.
(Oh, and by the way…when we say she’s an expert - that means sub-consciously, you trust her more!)

The ”Value for Money” debate

Imagine a world where people would be able to look at their pensions and see whether their provider was giving them good value for money. They’d be able to compare that value for money with other schemes. It might make them switch investments. It would certainly be a wake-up call for schemes which were not scoring well.
That’s a vision the government is aspiring to. A consultation on how to get there has recently closed and we’re awaiting its conclusions.
But how should you measure value for money? Should low costs be more important than good investment returns? Getting the metrics right is going to be a complicated job.
Casting his eye over the consultation is Phil Brown, today joined by Joe Dabrowski, the deputy director of policy at the Pension Lifetime Savings Association, and Rob Yuille, Assistant Director, head of long-term savings policy at the Association of British Insurers.

State Pension Age - should it be changing?

Raising the state pension age has been a hot topic this year. In France it’s led to riots. Back in the UK we’ve learned that there will be no announcement on raising the state pension age until after the next general election.
At the moment the age is 66. But if you were born after April 1960, you won’t get your state pension until you turn 67.And if you were born after April 1977 – you’ll be the first to have to wait till you’re 68.
But are those figures fair? Do we need to review the dates…and what about being more radical – like an earlier state pension age for people who have worked in physically demanding jobs?
Plenty for Phil Brown to discuss with Jo Cumbo, the Global Pensions Correspondent at the FT and Alyshia Harrington-Clark, Head of DC, Master Trusts and Lifetime Savings at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA).

Investments

On this podcast, Phil Brown and his guests will be looking at the volatility in investment markets, and what that means for pensions.
A global pandemic, a war in Europe, soaring energy costs and a cost-of-living crisis - it’s a bewildering time for those making pension choices.
Phil’s joined by Alistair Byrne, Head of Retirement Strategy at State Street Global Advisors and journalist Mona Dohle, a specialist in investment at news outlets Room151 and Net Zero Investor.