I ran the first Women’s Financial Future Initiative session today, over the lunch hour, with fifteen women at Bravura Solutions.
The Initiative exists because the pension system already contains protections for the things that shape a lot of women’s working lives, such as time out for caring, part time hours and relationship change. I don’t know of many public campaigns to tell women those protections are there, so the session explains how the system works and what is already in it. It doesn’t tell anyone that their retirement income is a consequence of not having saved hard enough. Men are welcome to come.
Today made me think we are on the right track. The women were different ages and in different situations, and they took away different things. Several wanted to know more about survivor benefits. Others left thinking about their own contribution levels. Someone asked what happens to a pension when markets fall, which turned into a long discussion. I couldn’t have predicted which of them would care about which part, and that is why the session covers the whole system rather than the bits I might have guessed at.
I also got useful feedback on signposting, and there were two services in particular that I will build into future sessions.
The first is the Pension Tracing Service. If you have lost track of a pension but you know the name of the employer or the provider, this free government service will give you the scheme’s contact details. It won’t tell you whether you have a pension or what it is worth, and you have to contact the scheme yourself after that. The MoneyHelper pensions dashboard will eventually make this much easier, but the Pensions Dashboards Programme currently expects it to reach the public in the 2027/28 financial year, so tracing is what we have for now, and the group valued knowing it existed.
The other is the Money Midlife MOT, which most of the room had never heard of. It is a free online tool aimed at people between 45 and 65. You answer questions about your finances, it takes around five minutes, and you get a personalised report telling you what to prioritise, with links to guidance on pensions, debt and savings. It’s open to people of all ages as well.
Both services are free and government backed. Both help people work out what is actually held in their own name. Many people in the room hadn’t heard about one or both of them.
Everyone I spoke to afterwards said they had learned something they didn’t know before. I should be clear that this is my impression of the conversation rather than anything I measured; I didn’t have an evaluation form ready for this session, and I will for the next one. The point the group made most firmly was that this information should be publicised far more widely than it is, which is what the Initiative is for.
The session takes sixty minutes and works over a lunch hour. It costs the employer nothing, now or ever. It isn’t financial advice, a budgeting course, or a technical pensions seminar. It explains how the state pension and private pensions interact with caring, working patterns and relationship change, so that people can see what shapes their own income later on.
If you would like a session at your workplace, get in touch: info@pensionsresearch.co.uk
My thanks to Bravura Solutions, and to the fifteen women who gave up their lunch hour.
Pensions Goth
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