On the go: The Pension Scams Action Group, a renamed and revamped Project Bloom, is to get a six-figure budget to tackle scams across the next year, with the prospect of more to come.
The Pensions Regulator launched its new anti-scam strategy in August, designed to better coordinate intelligence between various scam-fighting organisations and departments.
Its three-pronged approach will educate industry and savers on the threat of scams, encourage higher standards and prevent practices that can harm savers’ retirement outcomes, and fight fraud through the prevention, disruption and punishment of criminals.
It will also review information-sharing arrangements with the Money and Pensions Service and the Financial Conduct Authority, and work with PSAG partners to review the suitability of scam prevention warnings for savers transferring to self-invested personal pensions and small self-administered schemes.
Speaking at a Pension Playpen event on August 9, Pension Scams Industry Group chair Margaret Snowdon confirmed PSAG would have a six-figure budget for a year’s operations, with the prospect of more to follow. PSIG is a volunteer-based organisation that collaborates with PSAG.
“PSAG, the action group that used to be [Project] Bloom, has now got a budget. They didn’t have a budget before, it was all done by various people being prepared to put in some time into it out of their own resources,” she said.
“Now there is a specific budget for PSAG. It’s not a huge amount, but it is allowing for a little bit more organisation, and for the recruitment of a senior specialist to lead all the initiatives under PSAG, and to make sure all of those partners around PSAG actually do what they promised to do.”
Snowdon would not be drawn on the precise figure, but said its budget would be in the order of six-figures for one year, “with probability quite high for more in years two and three”.
“I would have liked more, and more to be given to PSIG, because we do everything voluntarily. There’s no money available to give to anybody else, but I am pleased that there is enough money to employ somebody to make a difference,” she explained.
“I think it’s a start. If they start delivering — which they ought to do — then more money should be forthcoming. It’s better to spend more money on prevention than suffer the consequences of pension scams, which end up costing all of us a lot of money.”
