SAGA DIRECTOR-GENERAL DR ROS ALTMANN COMMENTS ON PENSIONS ISSUE.

DR ROS ALTMANN

DIRECTOR-GENERAL, SAGA

PRESS RELEASE

 May 12, 2011.

SAGA DIRECTOR-GENERAL DR ROS ALTMANN COMMENTS ON PENSIONS ISSUE.

Dr Ros Altmann, commenting on the latest developments in the issue of state pension age for women said:

“Saga continues to believe that the Government's proposals to increase the State Pension Age for a group of women in their late fifties, who have already accepted a rise in their pension age of four or five years, is unfair and needs to be reconsidered.  

“Many of the women affected have no way of making up for the lost pension income they were expecting and the proposals run directly against the commitments made in the Coalition Agreement just one year ago.  

“In that Agreement the Coalition partners promised that the state pension age for women would not start to rise again before 2020.  Yet, within a few weeks, it had announced that women's pension age will start increasing again in 2016.  

“The proposal is particularly unfair for women.  Men's state pension age will not start rising until 2018 and then only by a maximum of one year, whereas the Government's plans will see the pension age for over 500,000 women increase by over one year, with 300,000 of them facing an increase of more than a year and half.   

“The most vulnerable women are already on low incomes, some are unwell or caring for others and were relying on the state pension to be paid, as promised, to avoid penury.  Now the Government is proposing to force them onto unemployment benefits or means-testing at a much less generous level than for pensioners.  There is huge anger among the women affected, who feel desperately let down by the Government. 

“It is, therefore, heartening to see that some LibDem MPs are willing to defy the Coalition and call for a rethink.  Annette Brooke and Alan Reid have asked Ministers to rethink. 

“Saga has 15,000 over 50's who believe this is wrong. “

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

07788 978800

www.saga.co.uk

DR ROS ALTMANN COMMENTS ON AVIVA REAL RETIREMENT REPORT.

DR ROS ALTMANN


DIRECTOR GENERAL, SAGA

SAGA SOUNDBITE



December 8, 2010.

DR ROS ALTMANN COMMENTS ON AVIVA REAL RETIREMENT REPORT.

Dr Ros Altmann, Director General of Saga, said: “Let’s not force anybody to retire. Apparently a third of pensioners feel they were forced to do so, but all we’re doing as a society is creating a situation in which people who want to work – and could work out having to be financed by the taxpayer.

“People past traditional retirement age are in their ‘bonus years’ – not just for themselves, but for the economy. ‘Part-tirement’ is the answer.

“We need to find ways of helping older people stay at work part-time; not only does it save the country money, but it also means we’d keep skills and talents that take decades to build. The abolition of the Default Retirement Age cannot come soon enough – forcing people to retire is Dickensian.”

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

07788 978800

im@pressrelations.co.uk

www.saga.co.uk

PENSIONS EXPERT ROS ALTMANN, SAGA: REFORM COULD FINALLY START TO ADDRESS OUR PENSIONS CRISIS

ROS ALTMANN

DIRECTOR GENERAL

SAGA

PRESS RELEASE

October 25, 2010.

PENSIONS EXPERT ROS ALTMANN, SAGA: REFORM COULD FINALLY START TO ADDRESS OUR PENSIONS CRISIS.

Ros Altman, Director General of Saga, says the government is finally getting to grips with the inadequacies of the UK state pension system – and a “pensions revolution” may well be on the cards.

Before the General Election, Saga conducted a nationwide poll of the over-50s and drew up a list of the top six policy changes that older citizens want.  This Saga Manifesto called for “a flat-rate state pension for all citizens without means testing”. 

“It could be that we are one step closer to achieving that now,” said Ros Altmann..

“After years of watching our pension system falling apart, it seems that the new Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, may finally be getting to grips with the inadequacies of the UK state pension.  If today's reports are accurate, and they do seem mightily well-informed, a pension revolution is about to occur.

“For years, Government has tinkered with our current inadequate state pension system, adding to its complexity, while failing to address the fundamental problems associated with mass means-testing of pensioners.

“As the OECD recently pointed out, the UK has just about the lowest state pension in the developed world - and it is by far the most complex.  Most people have no idea what state pension they will be entitled to.

“This is because anyone retiring can receive many different elements of State Pension.  There is a Basic State Pension, a Second State Pension, plus some State Earnings Related Pension - or SERPS - plus the Graduated Pension.  All of these have different qualification criteria and come from contributions made in different years.  And if all these are not enough, nearly half of pensioners can claim a complex, means-tested Pension Credit, which consists of a Guarantee Credit and a Savings Credit.  What a mess.

“Before 1997, Gordon Brown told the Labour Party Conference that he wanted to end the means test for the elderly, but he actually increased means-testing dramatically.  While advising the Labour Government from 2000 - 2005, I kept highlighting the complexities of our pension system, also warning of the dangers and disincentives entailed in mass means testing.  I advised introducing a universal flat-rate pension.  But this was ignored.  In 2005, the Turner Commission again failed to grasp the opportunity for such radical reform.  So many missed opportunities.

“The fundamental problem is that our State Pension system undermines private pension saving.  If around half of pensioners end up entitled to means-tested benefits, their private pensions will be penalised and some may see their whole private pension effectively taken away.

“As we are about to launch a national system of auto-enrolment, and a new national pension scheme (called NEST) specifically targeted at low to moderate earners, we would be at risk of putting these workers into a pension which would ultimately be partly or totally removed from them by the means-test.  It is particularly those low to moderate earners who are most likely to lose out and they will be unable to save enough to float themselves off means-testing.  Therefore, in order to alleviate some of the problems of auto-enrolment and the official NEST pension system, it is really important that the Government sorts this out.

“The increase in State Pension Age, announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review, was supposed to be 'fair' because it was in exchange for a decent state pension.  However, the current proposals for slowly raising the Basic State Pension each year would not be sufficient to really pay a decent pension, whereas radically reforming the system, as suggested in today's papers, would be a far better deal, especially for women.

“If there was a flat-rate state pension, the Government would be able to end the current practice of allowing people to 'contract out' of the state second pension.  This could bring in an extra £8billion in National Insurance contributions each year - £5billion of which would come from public sector workers and employers.  This extra revenue would also save money in the longer term, because public sector pension schemes would not have to pay the replacement State Second Pension from scheme pension age, it would just be paid from state pension age.

“This could be the best news for pensions in years.”

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

07788 978800

www.saga.co.uk