Long-term planning essential

Taking the uncertainty out of people’s long-term financial future, or at least giving them the opportunity to make real provision for it, is something practical which the Government has come up with in their plans for an innovative pension scheme in the new year.

On the face of it, the scheme will offer an opportunity to the considerable swathe of workers who do not currently have pensions to make provision for the future. At the moment, 50% of the workforce are without pension cover and 70% will need extra cover if they hope to maintain the standard of living they have during their working life.

Those are shocking and very worrying statistics and if allowed to go unchecked the emergence from employment by countless thousands of people without pensions, or inadequate ones, would pose very serious societal implications into the future.