All Aries Insight articles
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News
Pensions industry fires back at Opperman criticism
Stalwarts of the pensions world have responded to pensions minister Guy Opperman’s suggestion that the industry lacks long-term vision.
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News
How to win a PIPA and influence judges
The March 11 deadline for submissions into this year’s Pension and Investment Provider Awards is fast approaching.
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News
Ombudsman criticises Railways scheme for maladministration
The Pensions Ombudsman has partly upheld a complaint by a member of the Railways Pension Scheme against its trustee and administrator, RPMI, after finding maladministration in the scheme’s decision to suspend a member’s pension between July and December 2018.
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Podcasts
Podcast: Treasury ‘ignored advice’ in public sector pension reforms
Podcast: A report from the Public Accounts Committee about the public sector pensions reform has showed that Treasury ignored advice that could have prevented the McCloud case, argues Ian Neale, co-founder of Aries Insight. He is joined by Sackers partner Claire Carey, in an episode also covering industry consultation fatigue and the new Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures reporting requirements.
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News
Experts dismiss national pension fund proposal
Analysis: Experts have largely poured scorn on a highly controversial proposal to create a gigantic national sovereign fund by merging public schemes and then mopping up private plans as well.
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Podcasts
Podcast: PPF could face new court case on benefits
Podcast: After the ruling from the High Court that the Pension Protection Fund cap on deferred member benefits is illegal on age discrimination grounds, the pensions lifeboat could face a new legal challenge as members who have not reached retirement age have their benefits cut to 90 per cent, argues Ian Neale, director at Aries Insight. He and Sara Protheroe, chief customer officer at the PPF, discuss this topic, as well as the interim regime for superfunds and the implications of the new insolvency bill for pension schemes.
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News
Pensions experts predict RPI limbo for years to come
Experts have condemned delays in publishing a long-awaited consultation on reforms to the retail price index, since its outcome could radically alter the fortunes of pension funds and pensioners.
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News
Johnson lambasts billion-pound costs of LGPS
The stellar investment returns of the Local Government Pension Scheme over the past decade may be overplayed, according to a leading expert from a right-wing think tank, who also controversially claimed that the scheme offers poor value for money.
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News
Field blasts lack of support for plumbers faced with huge DB debts
The Work and Pensions Committee has warned the government that “much more needs to be done” to support small plumbing businesses being faced with potentially crippling debts to the industry’s multi-employer defined benefit scheme.
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Features
Schools and colleges warn of ruinous £1.1bn pension hike as DfE consults
The survival of some state schools, colleges, universities and independent schools is threatened by the £1.1bn rise in the employers’ contribution to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme from 1 September 2019.
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Opinion
The government’s pensions priorities for 2019
Aries Insight’s Ian Neale says government and regulators should look to restore public trust in pensions in 2019, ensuring previous priorities such as the pensions dashboard do not fall by the wayside.
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News
21% of older workers think they are too savvy to be scammed
A joint regulatory scams awareness campaign has prompted tens of thousands of people to seek information about pension scams, but more than half of 45-65 year olds with a pension still do not think they are likely to be targeted by con artists.
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Features
Investment consultants could be under microscope for next decade
Analysis: Investment consultants may have escaped the more stringent of the recommendations in the Competition and Markets Authority’s provisional decision earlier this year, but experts have said that the scrutiny of the market is unlikely to end at Christmas.
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News
Civil partner LGPS survivor benefits set to match widows
Survivors of same-sex civil partnerships and same-sex marriage will receive the same survivor benefits as those provided to widows under new proposals for the Local Government Pension Scheme.
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News
Ombudsman’s police ruling highlights trustee duty of care
The Pensions Ombudsman has upheld a police officer’s complaint that Northumbria Police transferred his pension to a new scheme without having conducted adequate checks or provided him with sufficient warning about scams.
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News
Communications essential as cold-calling ban takes step forward
The Department for Work and Pensions has taken a further step towards implementing a ban on cold calls related to pensions, but experts have cautioned that the delayed measure will not be sufficient on its own to stamp out scams.
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News
BA wins appeal over discretionary increase
The trustees of the Airways Pension Scheme went beyond their remit in granting a 0.2 per cent discretionary increase to members’ pensions in 2013, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
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News
SNP bill seeks PPF support for orphan liabilities
A private members’ bill submitted by Scottish National Party MP Alan Brown last week could see the Pension Protection Fund taking on so-called orphan liabilities from multi-employer pension schemes.
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Opinion
GDPR - A brave new world for the pensions industry
It is easy to imagine bunkers in remote corners of England, hatches locked, filled with trustees who are desperate not to hear any more about the General Data Protection Regulation.
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Opinion
Scrap the cap? PPF rules challenged at CJEU
It will be interesting to see if the Pension Protection Fund compensation cap survives the impending Court of Justice of the European Union’s decision in the case of Grenville Hampshire v The Board of the Pension Protection Fund, writes Aries Insight’s Ian Neale.