
Pensions Goth loves to explain what’s going on in pensions, what Government, industry and regulators are up to and what changes might mean for members. Pensions Goth loves cats, heavy metal music and is passionate about the truth, data and making sense of pensions.
She also tweets as #Pensions_Goth and you can find her on blue sky at @pensionsgoth.bsky.social
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Welcome to Pensions Goth Blog
Insights, stories, commentary and thoughts on pensions policy and events.
Blog categories
- Adequacy
- Advice
- AI
- Annuities
- Automatic enrolment
- Behavioural economics
- Benefits
- Carers
- Chancellor
- Charge cap
- Charges
- Collective Defined Contribution
- Consolidation
- Contributions
- Dashboards
- Data
- Decumulation
- Defined Benefit
- Defined Contribution
- Disability
- Drawdown
- DWP
- Early access
- Engagement
- ESG
- Ethnicity
- FCA
- Financial inclusion
- Gambling
- Gender
- Governance
- Guidance/advice
- History
- Housing
- Income
- Inflation
- Influencers
- Inheritance Tax
- International
- Investment
- Labour market
- LGPS
- Long term care
- Mansion House
- Master Trusts
- Modern slavery
- Nature
- Pension freedoms
- Pensions Commission
- Pensions gap
- Poverty
- Private pensions
- Regulation
- Responsible investment
- Retirement
- Romans
- Self employed
- Small pots
- Social media
- State Pension
- State Pension age
- Steve Webb
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- Triple lock
- Trustees
- Uncategorized
- Value for Money
- VFM
- WASPI
- Water
- Women
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Data infrastructure and the pensions dashboard: Interview with Chris Curry, Money and Pensions Service
I talk to Chris Curry about what the dashboard tells us about UK pensions infrastructure Pensions Goth: I want to explore the problems with data sharing in UK pensions, particularly the absence of a reliable identification number and wider gaps in data infrastructure. How has the dashboard programme…
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Clearing out the regulatory relics
Jemma Mouland, Deputy Director for Ageism and Inequality at Centre for Ageing Better, got in touch to discuss some of the age-based rules that remain embedded in pension and insurance regulation. This post sets out the key points from that conversation. Two recent policy changes signal that age…
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Adequacy, Automatic enrolment, Behavioural economics, Contributions, Defined Contribution, Pensions Commission, Private pensions
When the default becomes the norm
The Turner Commission’s design for auto-enrolment drew on US research showing that inertia could be used to keep people enrolled in pension schemes, and they were right; AE opt-out rates stayed below 10%. The same research showed that defaults can anchor savers at minimum contribution rates. The Commission…
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Regulators face a recurring problem
How do you ensure accountability without removing the judgement that good decision-making requires? There is no cost-free answer; metric-based systems cost less to administer but can distort behaviour, while qualitative supervision is more flexible but can place greater demands on regulators and schemes. The VFM framework was introduced…
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Let’s be cautious about allowing pension savings to become a housing subsidy
We are going back and forth on whether pensions should be used for housing. I am concerned about any such policy being a pensions fix for what is essentially a housing market problem. We run the risk of distorting the housing market by using pensions; we need to…
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Adequacy, Automatic enrolment, Behavioural economics, Benefits, Carers, Decumulation, Defined Benefit, Defined Contribution, Disability, DWP, Early access, Ethnicity, Financial inclusion, Gender, History, Housing, Income, Inflation, Labour market, Long term care, Mansion House, Pension freedoms, Pensions Commission, Pensions gap, Poverty, Private pensions, Retirement, Self employed, State Pension, State Pension age, Triple lock, Women
The road to Pensions Goth – a Pensions Net-Work after dinner speech
I never meant to end up in pensions. In fact, I spent the first 15 years or so of my life dreaming about overthrowing capitalism. My father was a Marxist and fed this passion, telling me I would grow up to be a leader of men, and I…
