Pension wealth management 'must be controllable'

The pension system in the UK needs to remain controllable, the chief executive of the National Association of Pension Funds has argued.

Commenting on potential changes to the UK pensions arrangements announced by the government last week, Joanne Segars argued the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition needs to work alongside industry bodies in order to improve wealth management in occupational pensions.

She noted the government is right to focus its efforts on ensuring the auto-enrolment pensions scheme works well, but warned this and the National Employment Savings Trust low-cost pensions scheme alone ’will not reinvigorate private pensions’.

And Ms Segars called for improvements to state pensions in order to compensate for inevitable rises in the retirement age, adding the UK has ’one of the lowest [state pension schemes] in the developed world’ and that needs to be altered.

Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, confirmed last week the state pension age is to be raised to 66 a decade earlier than had previously been planned.ADNFCR-2318-ID-19860207-ADNFCR