McFall sets out commission principles

Speaking at the National Association of Pension Fund's (NAPF) Investment Conference 2011, McFall told delegates auto-enrolment "isn't the end of the road", and he wanted to move away from a "stop and start" approach to pension reform.

Describing current workplace savings as a "toxic mix" and "mess", he said his commission would "not let politicians off the hook" in moving reform up the Westminster agenda.

"We need to consider how much people are saving and if they should be saving more," he said. "We want to find the deeper reasons why people aren't saving."

McFall will depart on an NAPF-organised tour of schools, universities and colleges to discover the "barriers" against greater retirement saving, with young people a particular focus of the commission, which will use Facebook and other social media to reach out to younger savers.

The key principles of the commission's work - to produce an interim report in the summer, and a final report at the next NAPF conference in October - will be the coverage of workplace pensions, the simplicity of the language used to communicate them and the investment return on assets.

NAPF chief executive Joanne Segars added: "It would be really valuable to encourage debate for these issues not just by all of us but also to get your scheme members and scheme members of your clients involved."