On the go: Pension reforms from the mid-2000s, such as the introduction of auto-enrolment, were only implemented successfully because of the Pensions Commission and its membership, research has found.
The report, published on Wednesday by Nest Insight and the University of Bath, analysed why and how the UK pension reforms (1997–2015) were successfully implemented.
The report stated: “The mid-2000s pension reforms are inconceivable without the creation of the Pensions Commission. It was hugely influential.
“We attribute the commission’s distinctive role and influence in large part to its membership and their skills. The commission represented an independent body of advice right from the start, an independence it asserted and cultivated throughout its life.
“It broadened the remit it had been given, adopted an evidence-based approach in order to depoliticise the framing of the pensions problem, and worked closely with the Department for Work and Pensions without becoming an extension of it, or of the government itself.”
The last Pensions Commission, chaired by Adair Turner, was set up by the government in 2002 and issued two reports in 2004 and 2006, respectively.
The commission was responsible for looking at how the pension system was developing and for making recommendations on whether the system should be reformed.
The report also highlighted five lessons from the commission’s policy development and negotiations that could be used in future policy work.
This includes providing evidence to boost persuasiveness and having reforms that are extensive but will not overhaul the whole pensions system.
In January, two think-tanks called for the government to set up a new pensions commission, after it found cross-party support for such an initiative.
