Commenting on the Government’s Pensions Review – ‘Terms of Reference’ released today, Paul Waters, Head of DC Markets, Hymans Robertson says:

“We welcome today’s update and the launch of the government’s landmark pensions review with a focus on DC workplace schemes and the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). There are significant opportunities for the government to help the industry to improve outcomes for DC pension savers. For example, building on the success of auto-enrolment to raise pension saving rates, leveraging the increasing scale of today’s DC schemes to access new investment opportunities, and enabling more sophisticated default retirement propositions to be introduced.

“As a firm we have worked with the LGPS since its inception. Given the undeniable success of the LGPS delivering in alignment with local government, we’re disappointed in the premise of the pensions review in tackling “fragmentation and inefficiency”. The LGPS has a long history of continuous improvement and a ready enthusiasm to adopt best practice. We look forward to supporting the LGPS to leverage the review, and increased Government attention, to continue to develop the scheme.

“We note that a Terms of Reference for Defined Benefits (DB) will follow separately and look forward to seeing this in due course.”