The Role of the State in Pension Provision: Employer, Regulator, Provider

2013-03-09
 |  Business & Economics
The Role of the State in Pension Provision: Employer, Regulator, Provider

Author: Gerard Hughes

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

ISBN: 9781475767896

Category: Business & Economics

Page: 161

View: 220

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This book deals with the role of the State in pension provision as an employer, regulator and provider. Part I deals with problems and reforms of public sector pension systems in OECD countries. The countries covered are Denmark, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and the USA. Part II considers the regulation of occupational pension schemes in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and whether there is still a role for the State in providing earnings-related pensions in the United Kingdom. Part III presents demographic projections for the next half-century, using Ireland as an example, looks at some of the options which have been used in Finland, and proposed in the United States, to cope with population ageing, and examines issues of intergenerational equity which are posed by these options. All the chapters deal with recent reforms. The chapters are written by acknowledged experts in their field who are independent of both the pensions industry and Government. Hence the chapters provide an informed critical account of current developments in relation to the reform of occupational pension schemes in the public sector and of the debate about the State's role as a regulator of private pension schemes and a provider of pensions based on the social insurance principal. The book is important as a source of information about pension schemes in OECD countries. It shows that there is not a unique model of occupational pension provision for public sector employees and that the pension benefits which are provided in different countries are quite variable. It also shows that public sector occupational pension systems have changed and are in the process of considerable further change in a number of OECD countries.

The New Regulatory State

2011-10-03
 |  Social Science
The New Regulatory State

Author: L. Leisering

Publisher: Springer

ISBN: 9780230343504

Category: Social Science

Page: 317

View: 781

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Explores the role of governments in creating and regulating private pensions in the UK and Germany since the 1980s. Private pensions have given rise to a new regulatory state in this area. The contributing authors compare pension regulation and utility regulation, while others analyse the regulatory role of the EU.

Regulating defined contribution pension schemes

2012-07-11
 |  Business & Economics
Regulating defined contribution pension schemes

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

ISBN: 0102977216

Category: Business & Economics

Page: 52

View: 108

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This report on the regulation of defined contribution pensions concludes that there is insufficient accountability to ensure that the regulatory system delivers value for money. The report highlights the taxpayer's substantial interest in the effectiveness of pension regulation. In 2010-11, tax relief for employer-sponsored defined contribution schemes amounted to an estimated £8.5 billion. The trend towards defined contribution schemes increases longer-term risks to the taxpayer, as members are on average likely to achieve considerably lower levels of retirement income than those with predominantly defined benefit pensions, and the state is ultimately liable for providing a basic income for the elderly. The Pensions Regulator regulates all work-based pension schemes and shares responsibility for regulating some of these schemes - so-called contract-based schemes - with the Financial Services Authority. The Regulator has adopted a sound approach of aiming to regulate in a targeted, proportionate and risk-based way, and that its evidence base is improving, as is the administration of schemes. However, The Pensions Regulator's current system of performance measurement does not make it possible to judge whether the Regulator is effective in protecting members' benefits, which is one of its strategic objectives. There is no single body leading on regulating schemes, setting objectives or measuring performance. The lack of a joined-up approach also means that there is insufficient basic information available about the market, such as definite numbers of scheme members or the levels of fees and charges they face.

The design of the National Pension Savings Scheme and the role of financial services regulation

2006-05-24
 |  Political Science
The design of the National Pension Savings Scheme and the role of financial services regulation

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee

Publisher: Stationery Office

ISBN: 021502897X

Category: Political Science

Page: 128

View: 902

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This report examines the issues surrounding the National Pension Savings Scheme and other models for private pension provision, following the reports from the Pensions Commission: 1st report (2004, ISBN 0117027804), 2nd report (2005, ISBN 0117036021).

Automatic enrolment in workplace pensions and the National Employment Savings Trust

2012-03-15
 |  Business & Economics
Automatic enrolment in workplace pensions and the National Employment Savings Trust

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Work and Pensions Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

ISBN: 0215042972

Category: Business & Economics

Page: 238

View: 703

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The Government established NEST as a low-cost pension scheme to help deliver the auto-enrolment programme and to address a market failure in the pensions industry which meant that many employers and employees were unable to access low-cost, good quality pension provision. However, the Committee believes that certain restrictions placed on NEST will create complexity for employers and will disadvantage some employees. The Committee's report recommends that, if state aid rules allow, the Government should remove the following restrictions: the cap on the annual contributions an individual can make to a NEST scheme; and the ban on individuals transferring existing pension pots into NEST. The Committee further urges the Government to proceed with its plans for State Pension reform, introducing a flat-rate State Pension and reducing the level of means-testing without delay. The report also highlights the difficulties and complexity employers and employees currently face in comparing the fees and charges applied by pension providers and recommends that, from 2013 onwards, if some auto-enrolment schemes still have hidden charges, or charges that represent poor value for money, the Government should use its powers to intervene. Auto-enrolment will impose new costs and may be particularly challenging for small employers however the Committee considers that the Government has taken appropriate steps to minimise the impact on businesses through its gradual and flexible approach ("staging and phasing") to implementation. Exempting small employers would create significant complexity, as well as excluding many employees from the benefits of workplace pension saving

Pensions Imperilled

2021-01-11
 |  Business & Economics
Pensions Imperilled

Author: Craig Berry

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780191085635

Category: Business & Economics

Page: 256

View: 691

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Private pensions provision in the UK is in crisis, yet it is not the crisis often depicted in political and popular discourses. While population ageing has affected traditional pensions practice, the imperilment of UK pensions is due in fact to the peculiar way policy-makers have responded to wider social and economic change. Pensions are a mechanism for managing failed futures, yet this function is being impeded by the individualization of provision. This book offers a political economy perspective on the development of private pensions, focusing specifically on how policy elites have sought to respond to perceived crises of demographic change, under-saving, and fund deficits, and in doing so have absorbed imperatives to subject individuals to a market-led regime under the influence of neoliberal ideology. This terrain is explored through chapters on the historical and comparative context of UK pensions provision, the demise of collectivist provision, the rise of pensions individualization and the state's role as facilitator and regulator in this regard, and the financial and economic context in which pensions provision operates. By placing the UK system in a comparative context of pensions reform agendas across the world, this book offers an original understanding of the unique temporality and materiality of pensions provision as a set of mechanisms for coping with generational change and forecast failures in capitalist economies. It also presents a nuanced account of the extent to which the state acts to anchor the process of pensions rematerialization and, crucially, concludes by outlining a coherent and radical programme of progressive pensions reform.

Making automatic enrolment work

2010-10-27
 |  Business & Economics
Making automatic enrolment work

Author: Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions

Publisher: The Stationery Office

ISBN: 0101795424

Category: Business & Economics

Page: 214

View: 598

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Current policy is that new duties will be staged in between 2012 and 2016, requiring all employers to designate a pension scheme into which all of their employees, aged between 22 and state pension age, should be automatically enrolled, so long as they are earning above an annual earnings threshold (the Pensions Act 2008 sets this at £5,035, equivalent to £5,732 in today's terms). Upon automatic enrolment, a minimum of eight per cent of earnings within a band would be contributed to the pension, with at least three per cent coming from the employer. This policy is designed to maximise private pension saving by individuals without imposing compulsion. The right to opt out will remain. This review looks at the scope of automatic enrolment and whether a new national pension scheme (National Employment Savings Trust or NEST) needs to be put in place for it to work. One of the most significant recommendations that it makes is that people should only be automatically enrolled once they reach the income tax threshold (which will increase to £7.475 in 2011) but that contributions should be on earnings in excess of the National Insurance earnings threshold (£5,715 in today's prices). There should be no changes to age thresholds and automatic enrolment duties should apply to all employers, regardless of size, as now. Employers should be given three months before auto-enrolment to ease the burden on companies. If staff choose to enrol before the three month period then companies will have to make contributions

An Introduction to the Law on Financial Investment

2012-01-20
 |  Law
An Introduction to the Law on Financial Investment

Author: Iain G MacNeil

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

ISBN: 9781847318749

Category: Law

Page: 542

View: 902

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Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2005, the world of financial investment has experienced an unprecedented boom followed by a spectacular bust. Significant changes have been proposed and in some cases implemented in areas such as the structure of regulation, the organisation of markets, supervision of market participants and the protection of consumers. The second edition takes account of these developments, integrating them into an analytical framework that enables the reader to develop a critical overview of the role of general legal rules and specialised systems of regulation in financial investment. The framework focuses on the role of contract, trusts and regulation as the primary legal influences for financial investment. The first part explores the relationship between investment, law and regulation. The second part examines the nature of investments and investors, both professional and private. The third part discusses the central role of corporate finance and corporate governance in linking investors with enterprises that require external capital. The fourth part examines the nature, operation and regulation of markets and the participants that support the functioning of the markets. The objective remains to provide a broadly-based and critical account of the role of law in financial investment. "MacNeil's eloquent and informative distillation of the regulatory fundamentals of investment law gives his book much international relevance...a timely contribution to help readers decipher the seemingly inextricable maze of financial regulation...Practitioners and legal policy advisers will..welcome it. They should find enlightening the book's careful scrutiny of the trust and contractual foundations of investment law and practice." Benjamin J Richardson Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation, Vol 22 Issue 1, 2007 ...a fascinating and informative book...thoroughly recommended as a learned but at the same time very readable introduction to the law of financial investment Gerard McCormack Banking and Finance Law Review, Volume 21 No 2, June 2006 ...very informative tool that introduces in a very friendly and accessible manner the nearly inextricable world of financial investment laws. Fadi Moghaizel International Company and Commercial Law Review, Vol. 17 No 2, February 2006