Chris Noon, Partner at Hymans Robertson, said

The Government continues to focus on the relatively small numbers of winners in its messaging and communications.  These winners are broadly the self-employed, public sector workers and low paid women. Far greater numbers across the whole workforce stand to lose out. While the DWP cedes this in its paper, the messaging to the public continues to focus on the winners. While it’s great that these people are better off, surely it’s more important to tell those who are set to lose out that they will so that they can make up the shortfall - and have time to do so. Two thirds of people in private sector DC arrangements do not save enough.

Generally speaking it’s private sector workers who will be worse off under the new regime. The DWP paper says that 75% of those reaching State Pension Age (SPA) in the next  15 years will be better off. That’s about 20% of the entire workforce. What about the other 80% who will generally be significantly worse off?  The Government’s own figures show that it expects to save billions from the introduction of the flat rate. Clearly those savings have to come from somewhere. Getting people to engage with pension saving is difficult. But creating a perception that everyone will be better off does not help us, as a nation, close the considerable savings gap. If people do not save enough, ultimately they will fall back on the State in the end.

Chris Noon is a partner in the firm and heads up our workplace savings business. He specialises in employee benefit strategy and design and has a broad understanding of all of the components that deliver a successful benefits programme.

Chris has led the development of the Hymans Robertson Guided Outcomes® proposition that provides a framework for supporting employees in achieving adequate levels of retirement income.

Chris is an owning partner of Hymans Robertson.