Current pensions minister Torsten Bell has ended a tradition lasting years of bland speeches by previous ministers delivering instead an interesting and informative outline of the government’s intentions at the Pensions UK annual conference in Manchester.
A key takeaway from Bell was, it seems, deliberately set out to appease the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) when he stated there are no plans for further consolidation of the LGPS pooling system.
This will be welcomed by the LGPS, as rumours circulated that the government was going to go for another round of consolidation before the end of the government’s parliamentary term by cutting two more pools, leaving four in total, after the recent culling of Brunel Pension Partnership and Access reduced the number of LGPS pools from eight to six.
Continuing the LGPS theme, Bell praised the funds and pools over the recent changes with the abolition of these two pools and 21 partner funds having to find new homes.
“The main thing I wanted to say is thank you to them all for making so much progress,” he said.
All the homeless funds have now found new homes in Border to Coast, LGPS Central, LPPI and London CIV.
This contrasts with his tone earlier in the year when he came out swinging at Pensions UK’s sister investment event in March when he stated consolidation was “inevitable”.
He also said then that UK pensions must invest more in the UK. Here again in Manchester he struck a more considered and conciliatory tone.
“We are not trying to solve the regional inequalities in productivity and living standards within the pensions system, we are trying to solve that through our wider economic strategy,” he said.
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