Pensions for the people: addressing the savings and investment crisis in Britain
Pensions for the people: addressing the savings and investment
crisis in Britain
The Government will
fail to protect millions of Britons from poverty in old age unless it
makes vital changes to the way in which it plans to introduce personal
accounts.
In this report, 'Pensions for the people:
addressing the investment crisis in Britain', the RSA concludes that
although the Government’s policy of auto-enrolment and personal accounts
represents a big opportunity for UK savers, the scheme must be extended
to cover pension payments above £3,600 if it’s going to have a major
impact. By limiting pension payments to £3,600 many savers across the UK
will be forced to open private pensions that often charge exorbitant
costs (often up to 40 percent of the value of their
pension).
Written by David Pitt-Watson, a leading
pension fund manager and founder of Hermes Equity Ownership Service,
this report argues that this simple step would not require employers to
match higher levels of saving; merely that higher savings can be placed
in, and invested through, the same pension pot.
The
RSA proposes that the infrastructure of the personal accounts system
should be made available to a wide range of approved providers that
conform to the basic principles of responsibility and low
cost.
This report also makes the case for the
development of a new type of pension fund that would cut costs by two
thirds, increase returns on pension savings by up to 50 percent, and
work to ensure companies are run in the interest of long-term
owners.
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'Pensions for the people: addressing the investment crisis in Britain'
report (PDF, 328KB)
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