News - January 2012
Mail Online - 31st January 2012
The secrecy and confusion surrounding fund charges appears to have hit home with the vast majority of investors now calling for greater clarity.A poll of investors has found that eight out of 10 believe fees are not being clearly disclosed to...
BBC - 31st January 2012
The government's latest public sector pension changes will make "little or no difference" to their long-term cost, an economic think tank has said.The report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) refers to the most recent pension negotiations.
BBC - 31st January 2012
Union representatives from Unilever's UK factories will meet in Liverpool on Saturday to plan the next stage of their campaign against changes to their pension scheme.The company is pressing ahead with its plans to close its final-salary scheme in July, and to...
Independent - 31st January 2012
Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers have voted to back the Government's revised pensions deal. Some 91.6 per cent of ATL members voted in favour of the deal, thrashed out after a one-day strike in November with six other teaching unions.
BBC - 30th January 2012
Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers have voted to back the government's revised pensions deal.Some 91.6% of ATL members voted in favour of the deal, thrashed out after a one-day strike in November with six other teaching unions.
Mail Online - 30th January 2012
Teachers and civil servants are plotting to take part in fresh strikes in March over threats to their gold-plated pensions, it emerged yesterday.Union leaders have discussed dates, with March 1 emerging as a possible favourite for a walkout by public sector workers.
Mail Online - 26th January 2012
Around 4.5million workers will miss out after a controversial decision by the Government to delay the biggest shake-up of pensions in a generation.Ministers have postponed the introduction of rules which for the first time will force bosses...
Guardian - 25th January 2012
Implementation of auto enrolment pensions will be staggered over five years to allow smaller firms longer to prepare.Workers at some of the UK's smallest companies will have to wait five years before being automatically enrolled into their...
Mail Online - 25th January 2012
Families and pensioners are being pushed to breaking point by massive debts, two reports will warn today.One study found that one in five workers is in debt when they retire, often with a large mortgage and a personal loan. On average...
Wales Online - 25th January 2012
Up to 40% of council tax collected by South Wales councils last year went towards pension contributions, new figures show.Cardiff council alone spent around £32.9m on pension contributions for staff in 2010/11, the highest amount in Wales – equivalent to £1 in...
Express - 25th January 2012
Pension providers have come under fire for charging hefty fees for managing retirement funds that can erode savings by as much as a third.A new study shows there are huge differences between the most expensive and the cheapest...
Express - 25th January 2012
Millions of pensioners live in poverty and struggle to afford basic necessities, according to a charity report.One in 10 people aged 60 and over say they “find it quite difficult” or “really struggle” to manage on their pensions. A third – 4.5 million...
Guardian - 25th January 2012
Steve Webb says a consultation to simplify occupational pension schemes could see a 'bonfire of the regulations'.The government is planning to reinvigorate workplace pensions by conducting a "bonfire of the regulations" in the spring.
Mail Online - 24th January 2012
Pension savers have been buoyed by the stock market’s best start to a year since 1989 – and market soothsayers reckon a bumper 11 months lie ahead.Shares on the FTSE 100 have jumped 3 per cent so far this month, adding thousands of...
Independent - 24th January 2012
Campaigners take on town halls over £2bn investment as they prepare to take healthcare role.Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been invested in the tobacco industry by councils which next year take on...
Professional Pensions - 23rd January 2012
More than half of people in Britain want to continue working past their pension age compared to just over a third in the rest of Europe, a European-wide study shows.A study of retirement attitudes across 27 EU states, conducted by the European...
Mail Online - 23rd January 2012
Annuity rates have plummeted by almost four per cent in the past three months, tearing a huge hole in future pensioners’ incomes.It is the biggest fall since September 2010 and means that average annuity rates are down by almost one tenth since June 2009.
Guardian - 23rd January 2012
When even successful companies such as Shell and Unilever are taking an axe to staff retirement packages, is the outlook bleak for everyone?Unilever, the maker of everything from Pot Noodles to Dove soap, has infuriated its staff by cutting pension payouts – despite being highly...
Express - 23rd January 2012
Millions of Britons have seen the value of their pensions soar after the stock market recorded its best start to the year for more than two decades.A three per cent rise in the value of Britain’s top companies so far this month – the biggest January increase in the FTSE 100 for 23 years...
Guardian - 22nd January 2012
The real pensions scandal isn't the public sector (mean average pension £7,800, median £5,600) but the private. It's not just the shrinking coverage and payouts (just 35% of private-sector employees now participate in an employer-sponsored scheme compared with 80% in the...
Mail Online - 21st January 2012
A generation of young workers face retiring in poverty because of the collapse of private pension schemes, a report warns today.
The figures highlight the grim future for employees in their 20s and show how they will be worse off than their parents and retirement will begin later.
Mail Online - 18th January 2012
Senior doctors have today thrown-out the Government’s pensions deal and threatened to go on strike.The British Medical Association has demanded ministers urgently reconsider proposals that would see doctors having to retire later and...
Guardian - 18th January 2012
The industrialist and Liberal politician William Hesketh Lever began building the Wirral village of Port Sunlight in 1888, 42 years before his family's company amalgamated with a Dutch margarine firm to become Unilever. It may have predated the current obsession of the British...
Mail Online - 18th January 2012
A devastating £7billion-a-year cut to private sector pensions is being mulled over by the Government in a bid to save foundering final salary schemes from extinction, This is Money understands.As more and more gold-plated private pension...
BBC - 18th January 2012
Thousands of workers at consumer goods giant Unilever are starting 11 days of strike action over changes to their pension scheme.Members of the Unite, Usdaw and GMB unions are opposing the company's plan to shut their final-salary pension scheme later this year.
Mail Online - 17th January 2012
Rumours that Britain's new flat-rate state pension at £140 a week had been flung into the long-grass have been dismissed by the Government.Reports last week suggested the bitter public sector pensions dispute, which might yet see...
Mail Online - 17th January 2012
Millions more pensioners could be forced to sell their houses to pay for nursing homes in old age amid plans to almost double the cost of care.The elderly may be required to pay up to £60,000 - £25,000 more than the current Government cap on fees - for a place,...
Guardian - 16th January 2012
PCS and Unite were barred from talks after refusing to accept proposals on pension reforms.Two leading trade unions that rejected government proposals on public sector pension reforms will be allowed back into talks after the cabinet secretary, Francis Maude, rescinded...
Wales Online - 16th January 2012
Doctors and nurses across Wales are being consulted about the UK Government’s latest NHS pension offer.The results could determine whether members of the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) are balloted...
Mail Online - 15th January 2012
The EU is planning to force companies to increase their pensions pools through new policy that will cost, according to the bank JPMorgan Asset Management, the UK’s economy an astonishing and extraordinary £600 billion.Make no bones about it- this cost will impact...
Mail Online - 14th January 2012
The elderly are being hit hardest by price rises, with a ‘silver inflation’ rate which far outstrips that faced by the rest of the population.For many pensioners, the cost of living has risen by nearly 20 per cent since 2008.
This means they are having to find an extra...
European Commission - 13th January 2012
To mark the start of the 2012 European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity of Generations, the Commission presented a new Eurobarometer survey showing that 71% of Europeans are aware that Europe's population is getting older, but only 42% are concerned about this...
Mail Online - 11th January 2012
The Treasury quietly pockets £850million a year in 'unfair' tax nabbed from savers paying into company pensions, it has been claimed.Fresh estimates suggest some 425,000 Britons are failing to claim tax back on pension contributions, sacrificing £2,000 each on...
Mail Online - 11th January 2012
Workers who retire this year can expect their pensions to be £3,000 less than they would have been in 2008.Big falls on the stock- market and record low annuity rates – which determine the annual income savers can buy with their pension...
Express - 11th January 2012
Millions of workers face the grim prospect of being unable to afford to retire as their pension savings incomes plummet, a report warned yesterday.
Those due to give up work this year can expect to receive £3,000 a year less than colleagues...
Bloomberg - 11th January 2012
Even before the euro crisis, people were worried about Europe’s pension bomb. State-funded pension obligations in 19 of the European Union nations were about five times higher than their combined gross debt, according to a study commissioned by the European...
BBC - 11th January 2012
People about to retire this year expect their pensions to be lower than those who have retired in any of the previous four years.A survey by the Prudential insurance company found that expected annual retirement income has dropped by £3,100 since 2008, to £15,500.
BBC - 10th January 2012
Leaders of Unison, the UK's biggest public sector union, will continue negotiating over changes to the local authority and NHS pension schemes.Its leaders have endorsed the government's proposals for more talks.
Mail Online - 9th January 2012
At least 10,000 British emigrants are enjoying life in the sun on sickness benefits of up to £94 a week.This could be costing the taxpayer almost £1million a week in a time of austerity.
Claimants in the UK are being forced to take...
BBC - 9th January 2012
Another group of public sector workers have rejected the government's plans to change their pension scheme.Leaders of the Unite trade union have rejected changes to the local government pension scheme.
Mail Online - 9th January 2012
Many of tomorrow's pensioners could be forced to work into their 70s and beyond due to the looming pensions crisis, experts warn.By 2020 a generation of 'Wearies' – Working, Entrepreneurial and Active Retirees – will simply not be able to afford to retire, they said.
Guardian - 7th January 2012
Consumer goods company Unilever faces a renewed wave of strikes this month over its decision to close its final salary pension scheme.Before Christmas, Unilever, which produces goods such as Dove soap, Wall's ice-cream, PG Tips and Marmite, was hit by the first ever...
BBC - 6th January 2012
The two largest teaching unions have called for further improvements in the government's plans to change the teachers' pension scheme.The government is in the process of raising employee contributions and introducing less generous schemes from 2015, with later...
Guardian - 5th January 2012
Oil group Shell has written the last chapter in the history of gold-plated retirement benefits for future generations when it became the last of Britain's biggest companies to scrap its final-salary pension scheme for new entrants.Shell is believed to be the last FTSE 100...
Guardian - 5th January 2012
Health workers at Britain's largest trade union, Unite, have rejected the government's "final offer" on NHS pensions reform.The move comes at the start of a crunch week of union meetings that will decide whether there is a third wave of the industrial action that...
Mail Online - 5th January 2012
Punishing new rules dreamt up by 'pesky' European bureaucrats threaten to kill off the last of Britain's final salary pensions and ravage our economy, industry experts are warning.The plan would force companies across the 27-nation European Union to plough vast sums of...
Mail Online - 5th January 2012
Britain's biggest union has told the Government to drop its public sector pension axe and switch focus to the 'real timebomb' – the private sector.Unison, which boasts 1.3million members, has fought tooth and nail to win concessions from the Government over plans to water down public...
BBC - 5th January 2012
The government has made no savings by raising the public sector pension age to 67, a pensions consultant has said."The total cost of the more generous, but later pension, is virtually the same as the cost of the current, less generous but earlier pension,"...
Express - 4th January 2012
Britain’s pensions system faces a £1trillion bill – £1,000,000,000,000 – under controversial new EU regulations, experts last night warned.Economists said “Pandora’s Box” plans to pump more capital into retirement fund coffers to make them less risky would have dire...
Mail Online - 4th January 2012
A £600billion bill from controversial new European rules could trigger the closure of the few remaining gold-plated pensions in the private sector, a report warned today.Experts fear the proposals from Brussels bureaucrats, called ‘Solvency II’, will leave...
Mail Online - 3rd January 2012
The pensions apartheid between public and private sector workers is set to grow due to the ‘seismic collapse’ of the latter’s pension schemes, a major report warns.Private sector workers are having their dreams of a comfortable retirement crushed by the...
