Where to buy
Amazon
Amazon is the only place to buy in paperback
Also available in kindle edition and hardback
Blackwells
Great value hardback edition available from Blackwells with free delivery
Apple books
Available on Apple books - visit the App
Barnes and Noble (USA)
Also available from retailers worldwide, including Barnes and Noble
Book details
This book will help you know more about the UK pensions system, in a way which is interesting! It is suitable for anyone - whether you know nothing about pensions, or are someone in the industry (trustees, actuaries/consultants, pension managers, finance directors or overseas parents).
Pensions are hugely important. In the UK alone, £2.2 trillion is invested in pension funds and around one-third of our adult lives are spent in retirement. Yet, most people have very little understanding of the pensions system. This is even more extraordinary when one considers that over 10 million people are saving into pension schemes where they are responsible for deciding how much to pay in and how to invest their funds.
This book is intended to help. Whether you are an individual with no prior knowledge of pensions, or an industry expert, this book should provide some interesting and useful insight into the wonderful world of UK pensions.
It starts with a brief history of how the system has developed over time, covering the different arrangements provided by the private and public sectors, as well as the State. It then looks into the system in more detail, explaining some of the complexities and why pensions so often make news headlines. The book uses real life examples and stories to bring the explanations to life - from Maxwell and the Mirror Pension Scandal, to Philip Green and BHS.
Chapters cover:
- A brief history of the rise of occupational pension schemes in the UK, the Maxwell scandal and subsequent legislative changes
- The decline in defined benefit provision, via benefit changes and industrial disputes
- The public sector pension arrangements and changes that have been made to these
- Money purchase (defined contribution) schemes and member disengagement
- The State Pension, including the WASPI campaign on State Pension Age
- How schemes are run (Trustees, advisers, actuaries etc)
- Pension scheme deficits / black holes
- The role of the Pensions Regulator and Pension Protection Fund (PPF), including a look at BHS
- How the Rules of pension schemes can lead to different outcomes - such as whether RPI or CPI inflation applies
- Pension fund investment, including hedging and environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations
- Pensions taxation and how this caused a problem in the NHS
- Some of the problems faced by schemes - from gender equalisation, to the British Steel pension transfer scandal
- What the future may have in store - Pension Dashboards, Collective Defined Contribution (CDC), consolidation and more
