Pensions _ The Government Catastrophe

The Office of National Statistics has revealed that the number of people contributing to a public or private occupational pension scheme has fallen by half a million between 2004 and 2006.  

This decline includes a fall of 200,000 workers, who no longer contribute to a scheme over a two-year period.  

Our view

The additional 300,000 fall in membership of pension schemes is down to Government mismanagement of pensions.  If you add together:

• Final salary minimum funding rules changes, effectively killing many company pension schemes
• The economy managed to low inflation meaning low investment returns
• The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) being in a total shambles, for example – no state pension forecasts for 18 months
• New pension simplification laws that were ‘chopped and changed’ to suit the Government retrospectively wasting millions of pounds

Is it really surprising that people have simply opted to save elsewhere, mainly in property?

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