• Pension Revolution and Evolution;

• The Summer Heat Wave – The Pensions Minister shares her ambitions;

• The Heat Wave Continues – The Pensions Minister provides feedback and shares her thoughts.

Dear Reader,

On the 14^th July 2014 Dr. R. Altmann CBE was asked to take on the role of  ‘Business Champion for Older Workers’ by the last Coalition government.

As a consequence of that appointment  and subsequent across the board meeting with actual workers and interested groups she produced a report entitled… ‘A New Vision for Older Workers: Retain, Retrain, Recruit’.

This study of 64 pages was intended to challenge the accepted working practice whereby at a certain point in a working life Statutory retirement would occur and the worker would amble off into the sunset clutching their Statutory pension and the additional provisions they had made for themselves for  this sylvan idyll of a new, but short life.  

The trouble was, that some, but not enough of these workers, were long term planners with their own personal philosophies who had decided several things for themselves a long time ago.

For example, that it was sensible to make financial provision in the form of savings and pensions allied with the need to take more care of their health and adjust their life style to enjoy this new world, and as a consequence they are living longer and leading better qualities of lives.

However that left the rump of the working population who had, and the youth of today still have, the philosophy of live for today and tomorrow and the State /Taxpayer will take care of them.

Sometimes of course these working circumstances arose because many workers were presented with no individuality of choice in respect of retraining or workplace opportunity to advance or enhance  and change their own personal working circumstances.

Unfortunately the government balance sheets in the future will simply not add up and those who planned and provided their retirement will inevitably be penalised with increased taxation to provide, with the State, for those who made little or no provision for their future.

 Of course nothing in life is as simple as that.

The UK workers down the generations had been conditioned by successive government to embrace  the philosophy that when the time came for compulsory retirement that the State would provide.

But as we now see that is fast becoming a financial impossibility and preplanning decades ahead for full retirement must now involve the workers, the employers, and the State investing in a joint effort to attain that common goal.

With a broad brush the Report attempts to deal with those who are about to enter the workplace and those who have been in the workplace for decades and are nearing their time, even if revised, of Statutory retirement.

Because the author Dr.Altmann CBE is the ‘older persons champion’ the report rightly tends to dwell on the plight of those who are approaching retirement now and how even at this perilously late stage options can be advanced

 for the individual worker to consider providing additional resources of income for the future and how that can be achieved is encapsulated in the phrase ‘Retain, Retrain, Recruit’.

It is a fact, and a shame, that those who were made to retire under the old regime took away with with them an invaluable lifetimes experience within the discipline they had chosen to work for most of their lives.

This Report, Study, and social Commentary, also reflects the social and individual benefits of extending an individual’s work ethic into a new, even if part time, working world, the consequence of retraining and voluntary re-employment in a refreshingly new occupation.

No longer will ageism be a barrier to those who wish to work on into later life, nor does the Equality Act 2010 permit such an approach.

Old does not necessarily mean stupid…nothing beats experience.

In the US for almost all their working lives workers regularly change types of employment and retrain for the new day.

However, this is driven more by fearful awareness that the State provides no safety net at the end of a working life in any form and indeed not a shred of health care and thus US workers look for a company to stay with for a lifetime to provide for them and their families with an employment ‘package’ which will extended well into full retirement at a much later age.

This is not necessarily a useful model for a UK system for the future because, thankfully,  the UK national social, work ethos, and work ethic is fundamentally different.

Nevertheless this Report has become the pension foundation stone for this new government leading as it will to encourage those who are living and spending for today to consider providing for their own future for tomorrow by signing up to pension schemes in the work place.

It is the sensible thing to do.

However, if they are to do so, then they must do so on the basis of established trust which currently does not exist.

Those presently in employment must be convinced that their saving and investments in their pension Scheme will be completely protected from financial predators, both now, and in the future.

When finally pensions are put into payment that those pensions will be managed by administrators of high individual integrity and ethical standards which will be a prerequisite allied with a formal depth of professional pension management capability the product of a National educational syllabus which automatically leads to National examinations, which in turn, produces interchangeable National and Internationally recognised formal post nominal qualifications of substance.

Nothing less will suffice.

For the full unabridged Report .Go Here.

Presently the summer Lightning flashes, the Thunder rumbles away into the distance, and the ears of corn raise their heads to quaff the warm rain to fill out the corn ears for a good harvest to come…

Many old farmers including the Bugler and presumably the rural equivalent of Rambling Sid Rumpole continue to say that all these rubric signs and customs simply herald more welcome summer heat to come…

Perhaps there is an analogy here for the pension ‘industry’ (what does this industry actually make?) and perhaps they might choose to pause and read the signs writ large of the metaphorical ‘heat wave’ to come in their cosy world?

Back in mid-May, post General Election, the ‘industry’ held a nauseating display of self-congratulation and self-satisfaction at Edgbaston Birmingham for two days under the title ‘Work Place Pensions Live 2015’.

The usual ‘experts’, failed politicians, and former Ministers with their accompanying sycophants were all dragged out to glad hand their chums as they gleefully contemplated how they were going to invest all these bags of golden pensioner coins to make more money for themselves, whilst sublimely ignoring those who generate all this money in the “Work Place” by the sweat of many collective brows.

Indeed in a mirror image extension of some sickening television game they even brought in these ‘experts’ at self-enriching investment.

One wonders how a man or woman standing for long hours in stained overalls at a working bench or behind a counter to fill these bags of golden coins for their future halcyon days would have been received on the floor of the hall amongst all these august luminaries? Unclean but necessary?

Perhaps, in missing the fundamental points, these luminaries ought to remind themselves how, and under what mind numbing circumstances, the golden coins get in the bags in the first place?

When, if ever, this cabal of chancers take the trouble to go and visit and talk with those who are going to place their pension saving with anyone, other than the useless 0.5% banks, they will hear hundreds of stories of defrauded saver pensioners who trustingly handed over their savings only when the time came to ask for their pensions to find that these spivs had walked off with their money, adding insult to injury, with the usual parting Agincourt salute.

So let us switch off the bright lights, empty their champagne buckets, and end this disgusting feeding frenzy and get right down to the nitty gritty.

Unless the man or woman at the workbench in their dirty overalls can be convinced of the collective and individual integrity of this coterie of self serving, self enriching,  bunch of  money grubbing layabouts, who generally have never done a day’s hard work in their lives, and would be hard put to recognise it if they had, savers are not going to invest in any scheme or anyone in the ‘city’ based on the appalling experience of others where, as one of many retirees put it, ..“he lost a bunch of his savings and money for his rainy day to a coterie of crooks”…

So perhaps this industry ought to regularly remind itself where the savings might come from, and pay due respect to those who will generate it by speaking with, and to ‘them’, with some degree of admiration and humility whilst they, not this so called industry, put their golden coins in their golden bags…

The other points which eluded their collective wit and wallets was the video address to the conference by the then Dr. R. Altman CBE the newly appointed Minister of State for Pensions, and now, Baroness Altman CBE of Tottenham.

Even at this early stage this conference in its self-laudatory jamboree missed the subtle and politically astute points which were being made by the Lady to them; these were flashes of lightning on the horizon presaging the storms to come.

Firstly, in spite of her obvious barely restrained, but well deserved personal happiness, she made her first major unequivocal political point that she had no intention of rushing up to Birmingham to join this chummery.

That would have been a fateful error and at a stroke, as she well knows, she would have destroyed not only her personal and political integrity but the well-deserved trust of those she has championed at the workbench for many years.

But this thoughtful and politically astute decision was lost on the grabbing and gabbling  gaggle.

Perhaps they should reflect and learn to listen that such political astuteness is usually a harbinger of a tough opponent who thinks before she decides, because in casting aside the usual polite political flummeries of ‘hard act to follow’, an opponent of the status quo she undoubtedly is.

The Lady also made the following thoughtful points…

“The hard work begins”…indeed it does the first point being that things in the industry are never ever going to be the same again. Change will come and it is coming, swiftly;

“Savers and savings”… note the words used and their order of reality; savers and saving must come first and, if minded, ‘investment’ may come later;

“High targets”… is not a suggestion, it is a statement of both personal aspiration and political intent;

“Making pensions work better”…this means that it is no longer acceptable for unqualified arrogant clerks to make up their laws as they go along and when errors and the fraud occur to blame the victims, and that consequentially these savers can be dismissively sent on their way with a flea in their ear.

Where there is maladministration amounting to known fraud the sack and jail ought to follow  individual responsibility otherwise the pension and criminal law has no function and surely the Admiral Byng lesson pour encourager les autres must be made;

“Independent expert”… the use of the word ‘independent’ is a reaffirmation of the Lady’s personal mindset even within government and this coupled with a statement of expertise, usually defined as someone with above average knowledge, is bald warning to those who may be tempted to treat her as a technical fool in all matters pension .

 The Pension Minister is entitled to have her own expectations from the industry by her use of the words  “Promoting and Enabling…” coupled with  “We will…” surely this is plain English enough in that this Lady will not tolerate or accept obstruction or obfuscation by an industry which would be well advised to learn listen and read the wind and to act positively and in concert with her to attain her so obvious goals…

It should be said, at this early point, by those who are considering joining the Minister’s trusty band by extending their own personal trust to her, that even in such a powerful position with the personal support of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet there will be political limitations to what she can achieve.

Such is the nature of politics, however until the ‘honeymoon’ period tapers off, well thought out haste is essential.

The most realistic expectation of any trusty band surely must be that she will not get it right every step along the way, but it is a reasonable expectation that she will, as she has demonstrated over many years, treat those she cares about with respect and patient care and do her fair and honourable level best, that is a reasonable expectation.

Equally, what should a concerned, and they ought to be very concerned, industry’s expectation be?

That they will be treated in a fair, firm, but not too friendly manner. The Lady has been sent to make omelettes and that will require the breaking of eggs, and perhaps the odd ego or two.

When the response has on many occasions been given to the Bugler in his Fire Service command days by that this or that Junior Officer that they… ‘would try’ …it always drew the immediate riposte… ‘don’t try… succeed!’. 

The Bugler with other commentators and pundits will continue to study this evolutionary pension political development with keen interest to ensure it suceeds.

On the 30^th June 2015 the Pensions Minister Baroness Altmann CBE issued a further departmental video to another commercial pension jamboree ‘Pensions and Benefits UK’ in which she shares her current feedback and thoughts on the national state of the pensions Revolution and Evolution.

It is immediately clear that the Minister has harnessed the power of publicity and has chosen to speak and reach beyond the Whitehall Mandarins and their coterie of chums within pension commerce to those she represents and those she wishes to encourage to adopt the individual philosophy of savings into personal pensions for their future.   

It is rare, perhaps uniquely encouraging that any Minister of State chooses to communicate in such a direct manner with those she knows she directly represents and those who have placed their Trust in her.

Other politicians, including the Prime Minister, seem to have chosen to write twittering tripe on a broad swathe of diverse social subjects on other forms of social media which have little relevance to running the Nation.

Such casual comments are wrongly regarded as government statements which only leads to mixed messages and confusion in the Electorate.

When any Minister issues a formal statement/video it is assumed that this publication directly reflects government policy and one assumes they ought to be published, in this case, on the DWP website, for all to see and access.

In the video which follows, the Bugler applied twice, for a copy of the original to the DWP Press Office –Pension Section, and after answering the usual inquisitions is still waiting for a copy?

This is simply unacceptable laziness, incompetence, or resistance to a new communications approach, in these civil servants on a subject which is vitally important to both the Minister and more importantly, the Workforce.

It is also clear that the government is running into employers resistance with a ‘sign up’ for auto enrollment of only 3% when compared to over 50% of the Workforce but it is early days and not unexpected though if employers are wise they ought to interpret the Minister’s remark of ‘complacency’ to mean that they have just been warned, before the yellow card comes next.

Once more the Ministerial language leaves no doubt that administrators must wake up and pay attention to the changing pension world around them and accept the clear vision of what the Minister’s intents are which is unequivocally  to make pension administration work better for all pensioners including Fire Service  and other Veterans….

To paraphrase the Minister, existing unqualified so called(by themselves)pension practitioners must, without fail, be rapidly performance evaluated by those who use these ‘experts’ services by means of a truly independent actuarial survey.

Whereupon they should be unconditionally discharged for having failed a fair Benchmark of performance test, or, conditionally Retained  until the completion of time limited compulsory formal pension management Re-Training, under a Statutory National Standard syllabus leading to Statutory examinations in preparation for Recruitment to this new world of Pension Revolution and Evolution.

The existing shambles of endemic pension maladministration and misfeasance by amateur pension Scheme managers can no longer be tolerated if Trust is to be re-established rapidly  within this new pension world.

The recent self-laudatory ‘Awards’ ceremonies, the giving of laurel wreaths by themselves to themselves, does little to enhance the reputation of those viewing these self-promoting commercial antics from the workbench. It is just simply so much window dressing frippery…

For the Minister’s latest thoughts, Go Here.