Your next pay increase will go into your pension

MikeJones_2

'Imagine you received a pay increase each year and your employer automatically paid half of this increase into your pension rather than passing the full increase in your salary. How would you react?'

How would you answer the above question given the following options:

• I would accept it and would not do anything
• I would ask my employer to pass the full pay increase to me in salary instead of half going into my pension
• Don't know.

That’s one of 7 key issues considered in the latest Research Brief issued by the Association of British Insurers. Easy to read, and only 8 pages long it’s filled with graphs and bar charts which provide some very insightful responses to the following headings:

1. In terms of your overall employment package (i.e. pay, holidays, etc) how important is your workplace pension?
2. Which, if any, of the following prompted you to check the overall value of your pension savings?
3. “I am concerned that I will have an insufficient income in retirement.”
4. The main types of pension savers
5. Imagine you received a pay increase each year and your employer automatically paid half of this increase into your pension rather than passing the full increase in your salary. How would you react?
6. If you could access part of your pension savings before you retire (for example, in the event of a financial emergency, or for a deposit on your first home) would you be more or less likely to start saving, or to save more, into a pension?
7. If you had the option to access part of your pension savings before you retire in the event of a financial emergency, which of the following would be most attractive?

To view the responses, see:

- Customer attitudes towards pensions - Research Brief (Association of British Insurers)

I thought some of the regular posters in this forum might find it useful?

Mike

I work in the field of Pension Education and Pension Guidance in the UK. I am a member of the Specialist Pensions Forum as well as being a Voluntary Adviser for The Pensions Advisory Service. I work with scheme members, employers, trustees, scheme administrators and advisers on most things to do with employer sponsored pension schemes. The views expressed by me in this thread are my personal opinions. You should seek professional advice from an appropriately experienced and qualified adviser. I am not an IFA.

StevieJ

He said: “I try to see pensions reform through the perspective
of women. Almost everywhere you look in the pensions world women have been the poor relations

Not those who have been in full time employment and received a pension at 60, a high proportion these days I would have thought.

Paul_Herring

MikeJones wrote: »

'Imagine you received a pay increase each year and your employer automatically paid half of this increase into your pension rather than passing the full increase in your salary. How would you react?'

I'd be wondering why I wasn't asked permission, and then put the other half in.

Customer attitudes towards pensions - Research Brief (Association of British Insurers)

I thought some of the regular posters in this forum might find it useful?

I think the regular posters would find it more useful if you'd link to the original article, rather than forcing them to click through some 3rd party website: http://www.abi.org.uk/Publications/ABI_Publications_Customer_attitudes_towards_pensions__ABI_Research_Brief_82c.aspx

MikeJones_2

Hi Paul,

Paul_Herring wrote: »

I think the regular posters would find it more useful if you'd link to the original article, rather than forcing them to click through some 3rd party website: http://www.abi.org.uk/Publications/ABI_Publications_Customer_attitudes_towards_pensions__ABI_Research_Brief_82c.aspx

Apologies if the manner in which I place links offends. I certainly had no intention of ‘spamming’ and I’ve been doing it this way without reprimand from the MSE team since I began posting on this forum two years ago.

This is an explanation of why I do it, the way I do it:

I manage a small team of pension professionals who write free pension educational factsheets for members of the public. We don’t sell pensions or any financial products to the public; we simply provide facts and information about pensions in a simple and clear manner.

We also provide a News Page and populate it with links to useful pension-related articles and features which we come across and which we believe our audience would benefit from reading. These are read by employees, scheme members, pension technical teams, pension legal and admin teams, trustees and employers.

As writers, we are passionate about copyright and intellectual property rights.

Many websites do not allow unauthorised linking or ‘deep linking’ (linking to a page below the Home Page) and in some cases website T&C’s may be ambiguously worded.

Therefore, where necessary and wherever possible, we try to obtain link permissions in writing.

There are often blanket permissions such as HMRC’s but this usually encompasses government departmental websites such as OPSI

Private, and particularly commercial, websites differ widely in what they permit when it comes to linking. Even where a websites T&C’s permit ‘deep linking’ it may be the case that an organisation/website needs to seek permission from a document’s original author(s).

This was indeed the case for the Research Brief contained on the ABI link, to which we have received the document author’s and the ABI’s permission (reply from ABI today: “Dear Mike, That’s fine, thanks for checking.”)

We post links to our pension news page from other websites (at their specific request) in part because they acknowledge the need to seek permissions as previously described.

I am not employed or engaged by MSE so I cannot see how I could ask for permission to link to an article from this forum. I understand many people do feel able to provide external links within a post but that is something MSE will have considered in permitting posters to place links.

Forums can raise highly contentious issues and sometimes tempers are frayed. Indeed sometimes threads can degenerate and with that in mind gaining permission to directly link to another website legitimately might not be as easy as one may first believe.

Furthermore, I like you, do not use an alias or post anonymously so my identity is not hidden and I can be easily traced. Anonymous posters may feel ‘safer’ posting a link without ‘fear’ of potential consequences of not having requested permission.

I hope, Paul, that has explained why I post in the manner that I do.

Do others agree with you? If so, I’ll have to consider stopping posting what I thought were useful threads and enjoyed by many, as I can’t see a way to link legally because of what I have described above?

Happy to follow the majority consensus though?

Mike

I work in the field of Pension Education and Pension Guidance in the UK. I am a member of the Specialist Pensions Forum as well as being a Voluntary Adviser for The Pensions Advisory Service. I work with scheme members, employers, trustees, scheme administrators and advisers on most things to do with employer sponsored pension schemes. The views expressed by me in this thread are my personal opinions. You should seek professional advice from an appropriately experienced and qualified adviser. I am not an IFA.

Harry_Powell

I cant stand the spammers who come on here professing to offer help when all they are doing is touting for clicks on their websites. However, having seen Mike's many helpful contributions on this board over the time I've been a MSE member, I can categorically state that he is not one of these. To be honest, I found the website Mike linked to, to be very informative not just on this particular topic.

Mike (and dunstonh) both give a lot of their valuable time to help people on here and I'm more than happy if they get some reward, especially if that reward is unsolicited, as it is in this case and in dunstonh's.

Anyway, that's my twopennorth!

purch

I think the regular posters would find it more useful if you'd link to the original article, rather than forcing them to click through some 3rd party website: http://www.abi.org.uk/Publications/A...Brief_82c.aspx

I'm not sure that is always necessary, as the OP has started a thread about this story, which probably would not get into the public domain unless/until it is picked up by the mainstream media, but a good solution to stop any confusion might be a small note added to say "Here is the link to the article as it appears on https://www.mycompany... etcetc."

That would give everyone the choice, whether or not they use the link or go through the trouble of trying to find the story themselves.

StevieJ

No problem with the link to your website, thanks for the links.

bob_a_builder

Spam ?
Advertising ?

Well your site does sell paid subscriptions and of course posting such links here is a good way to boost you own sites google page rank isn't it.?
SEO on the cheap ?

This MSE rule might seem to indicate such links are not allowed

MikeJones_2

Thanks for the replies, comments, suggestions and criticism - they're all useful. (Bob, all of the Factsheets and Quicknotes that we provide for the public - including the Pension News - are free, without charge and without the need to subscribe. We do charge professionals and businesses for other services that we provide - but there are no charges for public access and enjoyment).

Purch's idea might be a workable solution if it comes to it and thank you purch for making the suggestion. However, I am concerened that if I continue to post and make reference to the link being to a third party with any element of our actual correct domain name that this will indeed come under the MSE spam interpretation (When I first joined this forum I actually made the mistake of adding a link to our website and was barred for life by the MSE team. I then explained that there are around half a dozen pension professionals with the name Mike Jones and that I was simply, but nevertheless erroneously, attempting to distinguish myself from my other namesakes. The MSE team graciously accepted my explanation and invited me to rejoin).

Remembering WHY we post as we do (permission requirements and 'deep linking' issues) can be demonstrated by the fact that there are two or three recent pension forum threads about the proposal to change pension increases from RPI to CPI. These are popular posts and contributors are clearly seeking comments and guidance as to how it might affect their own situation.

I have posted today on our News Page an excellent article by a firm of specialist pension lawyers about this issue which would be of interest to those thread readers. I do have permission to link to such articles on this firm's website. (Under normal circumstances links to their website expressly requires prior permission from that firm's web manager). How otherwise would I be able to enlighten those that wouldn't have seen this?

Mike

I work in the field of Pension Education and Pension Guidance in the UK. I am a member of the Specialist Pensions Forum as well as being a Voluntary Adviser for The Pensions Advisory Service. I work with scheme members, employers, trustees, scheme administrators and advisers on most things to do with employer sponsored pension schemes. The views expressed by me in this thread are my personal opinions. You should seek professional advice from an appropriately experienced and qualified adviser. I am not an IFA.

Andy_L

AIUI this is what effectively happened when they introduced the compulsary Australian/New Zealand DC pension schemes - the employers paid in their contribution but then held down payrises for a few years to offset their costs.

Old_Slaphead

What's a payrise ?