Meeting future workplace pension challenges

Meeting future workplace pension challenges PDF Author: Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780101818421
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
The UK pension landscape is undergoing a transformation. Automatic enrolment will result in millions of people saving for their retirement for the first time. We will see employers taking on new duties to enrol their workers into a pension and contribute to this scheme. Membership of defined contribution (DC) pension schemes will also increase. But the onset of automatic enrolment and the changing pension landscape also brings challenges. To successfully achieve a cultural shift so that pension saving becomes the norm, we need to make sure that money put into pension saving stays there. The short-service refund rules for DC occupational pension schemes work against this principle. It is therefore planned to abolish these rules retain £70 - 130 million per year in pension saving. This will hopefully happen as soon as 2014 provided it is possible to implement an accompanying solution for small pension pot transfers at the same time. This paper presents three broad approaches to initiate debate about how best to address the problem of small pension pots: relatively minor changes to the current voluntary transfer system; automatic consolidation of small pensions in an aggregator scheme; and pensions automatically moving with people from job to job.

Meeting future workplace pension challenges

Meeting future workplace pension challenges PDF Author: Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780101818421
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Get Book Here

Book Description
The UK pension landscape is undergoing a transformation. Automatic enrolment will result in millions of people saving for their retirement for the first time. We will see employers taking on new duties to enrol their workers into a pension and contribute to this scheme. Membership of defined contribution (DC) pension schemes will also increase. But the onset of automatic enrolment and the changing pension landscape also brings challenges. To successfully achieve a cultural shift so that pension saving becomes the norm, we need to make sure that money put into pension saving stays there. The short-service refund rules for DC occupational pension schemes work against this principle. It is therefore planned to abolish these rules retain £70 - 130 million per year in pension saving. This will hopefully happen as soon as 2014 provided it is possible to implement an accompanying solution for small pension pot transfers at the same time. This paper presents three broad approaches to initiate debate about how best to address the problem of small pension pots: relatively minor changes to the current voluntary transfer system; automatic consolidation of small pensions in an aggregator scheme; and pensions automatically moving with people from job to job.

Automatic enrolment in workplace pensions and the National Employment Savings Trust

Automatic enrolment in workplace pensions and the National Employment Savings Trust PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215042972
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
The Government established NEST as a low-cost pension scheme to help deliver the auto-enrolment programme and to address a market failure in the pensions industry which meant that many employers and employees were unable to access low-cost, good quality pension provision. However, the Committee believes that certain restrictions placed on NEST will create complexity for employers and will disadvantage some employees. The Committee's report recommends that, if state aid rules allow, the Government should remove the following restrictions: the cap on the annual contributions an individual can make to a NEST scheme; and the ban on individuals transferring existing pension pots into NEST. The Committee further urges the Government to proceed with its plans for State Pension reform, introducing a flat-rate State Pension and reducing the level of means-testing without delay. The report also highlights the difficulties and complexity employers and employees currently face in comparing the fees and charges applied by pension providers and recommends that, from 2013 onwards, if some auto-enrolment schemes still have hidden charges, or charges that represent poor value for money, the Government should use its powers to intervene. Auto-enrolment will impose new costs and may be particularly challenging for small employers however the Committee considers that the Government has taken appropriate steps to minimise the impact on businesses through its gradual and flexible approach ("staging and phasing") to implementation. Exempting small employers would create significant complexity, as well as excluding many employees from the benefits of workplace pension saving

Governance and Best Practice in Workplace Pension Provision

Governance and Best Practice in Workplace Pension Provision PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215054128
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Improving Governance and Best Practice in Workplace Pensions

Improving Governance and Best Practice in Workplace Pensions PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215056979
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
The introduction of auto-enrolment makes rigorous pension scheme governance essential. This Report calls on the Government to reassess the case for establishing one body with sole responsibility for regulating workplace pensions. There are concerns over current gaps in regulation and the potential for further gaps to arise as a result of now having three regulators, the Pensions Regulator; and the new Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority, set up to replace the FSA. The Report argues that a single regulator is necessary to ensure that all members of workplace pension schemes are adequately and consistently protected. It also highlights that deferred-member charges and member-borne consultancy charges have the potential to cause serious consumer detriment. It recommends that both are banned by the Government, if significant progress is not made in the very near future by the industry towards ending them. There is particular concern about member-borne consultancy charges and those charges applied to deferred members - people who stop contributing to their pension scheme. The trend towards lower pension scheme charges is welcome. However, a good average is not sufficient and there is potential for consumer detriment in schemes that persist in retaining high charges. The Government should also regularly review its policy on capping charges for auto-enrolment schemes. Consumers are also continuing to lose out when they buy annuities because pension providers are not doing enough to ensure people are aware that they can shop around for the best annuity rate rather than being obliged to buy an annuity from their pension provider.

Improving transfers and dealing with small pension pots

Improving transfers and dealing with small pension pots PDF Author: Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780101840224
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
The Government considers that a system of automatic transfers to the new employer's scheme is the favoured approach, and want to develop a model of automatic transfers that includes pots created in automatic enrolment only. They agree that there is a need to look at issues of consumer detriment and how the system might work where people have multiple jobs or gaps in employment. They will work with industry to explore the potential of a virtual pot solution, particularly to help those with larger pots to see all their savings in one place. They will also work alongside the pension industry's new working group which will be looking at the scope to make more immediate improvements to the current volutnary transfer framework. Short service refunds are to be abolished but the idea of allowing micro pot refunds in an automatic transfer solution is to be explored

Joint Report on Pensions

Joint Report on Pensions PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Old age pensions
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Recoge: 1. An introduction to pensions reform- 2. A decade in pension reform in the EU - 3. The impact of the crisis - 4. Policy challenges over the long-term - 5. Policy implications.

Pensions Imperilled

Pensions Imperilled PDF Author: Craig Berry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191085642
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Private pensions provision in the UK is in crisis, yet it is not the crisis often depicted in political and popular discourses. While population ageing has affected traditional pensions practice, the imperilment of UK pensions is due in fact to the peculiar way policy-makers have responded to wider social and economic change. Pensions are a mechanism for managing failed futures, yet this function is being impeded by the individualization of provision. This book offers a political economy perspective on the development of private pensions, focusing specifically on how policy elites have sought to respond to perceived crises of demographic change, under-saving, and fund deficits, and in doing so have absorbed imperatives to subject individuals to a market-led regime under the influence of neoliberal ideology. This terrain is explored through chapters on the historical and comparative context of UK pensions provision, the demise of collectivist provision, the rise of pensions individualization and the state's role as facilitator and regulator in this regard, and the financial and economic context in which pensions provision operates. By placing the UK system in a comparative context of pensions reform agendas across the world, this book offers an original understanding of the unique temporality and materiality of pensions provision as a set of mechanisms for coping with generational change and forecast failures in capitalist economies. It also presents a nuanced account of the extent to which the state acts to anchor the process of pensions rematerialization and, crucially, concludes by outlining a coherent and radical programme of progressive pensions reform.

Employee Pensions

Employee Pensions PDF Author: Teresa Ghilarducci
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780913447956
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Describes policy directions, especially defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans, and their implications for both employers and employees. Reflects on issues of partial retirement, multi-employers plans, savings plans, and the potential and pitfalls of US Federal pension policy.

Automatic Transfers

Automatic Transfers PDF Author: Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780101860529
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
In the response to the consultation document Meeting future workplace pension challenges: improving transfers and dealing with small pension pots, the government confirmed it's intention to bring forward primary legislation to create a system where, broadly speaking, people's pension savings move with them when they move jobs. As people build up larger pots they will have better visibility of their pensions savings, helping them plan for retirement. The government has worked with the pensions community to develop detailed proposals for how this automatic transfer system should work. These proposals are set out in this paper and, where possible, specific detail given about the features of the new system, for example which people and schemes would be within scope and pot size limits. This paper also sets out how the delivery model might work, and the government's intention to work closely with interested parties to design the best model. The government aims to provide for a system of automatic transfers in the forthcoming Pensions Bill, with the detail covered in secondary legislation, subject to formal consultation.

Reinvigorating Workplace Pensions

Reinvigorating Workplace Pensions PDF Author: Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780101847827
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
The UK's pensions system is need of reform for two primary reasons. Firstly, the UK has an aging population and secondly, working age people are not saving enough to meet their expectations of income on retirement. The Government has already begun to set in train a series of reforms. In particular it has brought forward plans to increase State Pension age; set out proposals to create a single-tier State Pension to provide a firm foundation for saving for retirement; and introduced automatic enrolment into workplace pensions. We do, though, also need to ensure that those people saving privately for their retirement are doing so in high quality schemes. This strategy sets out the key issues which need to be tackled. The reinvigoration objectives include: increase the amount people are saving in pensions; increase the amount people receive for their savings; enable industry innovation to develop products which will give more certainly about pensions; increase transparency; and ensure the sustainability and stability of the UK pension system.