Projects
The future of pensions
We have undertaken two projects on the future of pensions.
Signalling value for money to the public
This pamphlet was concerned with possible approaches to signalling the value for money of stakeholder and other pensions. The complex presentation of traditional financial services to consumers will not work in the mass market of stakeholder pensions. There is a clear need to simplify the presentation of financial performance such that offering can easily be compared. And one key feature of pension value for money is the level of charges levied, which can have a major impact on the amounts of money received.
All the authors in the pamphlet argue for a standard benchmark presentation of product value for money, based upon reduction in yield and (perhaps) investment performance. Some argue that this should take the form of public league tables. Others argue that the key is for government to kitemark products which fulfill certain criteria. In either case, it is for the Government and its regulators need to take on a leadership role, making sure that consumers have a reasonable basis for comparing pensions.
View/download the full report.
Is there still a case for the state pension?
Even though the government has recently announced a substantial rise in the State Retirement Pension (SRP), it continues to insist that future increases should be linked to prices rather than earnings. At the same time, it is also promoting the means-tested Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) as the tool to tackle pensioner poverty. Worth much more than the SRP and linked to earnings, a vigorous MIG represents a very different way of providing pensioners with a basic income. In this briefing paper, we assess the differences between the SRP and the MIG and consider what the implications might be of the course that the government has now set