We learned today that the introduction of Personal Accounts (the new form of Government enforced savings for retirement) will be soft launched in 2011 with volunteer employers.
This launch though will also come with a new name as Personal Accounts will be renamed National Employment Savings Trust with the silly little acronym “Nest”. The Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA) will be renamed The Nest Corporation.
All of this would be at best amusing and entertaining if the subject matter was not so serious.
The UK used to have the reputation of having the best pensions system in Western Europe if not the World. It is now a shadow of its former self. Where does the blame lie for that?
Well it would be easy to say the blame lies fairly and squarely with the Government and Politicians of all political persuasion.
Pillaging pension funds between 1997 and 2010 by taxing dividend income was merely the starting point. Treating pensions as a political football and introducing more legislation than you could shake a stick at has turned a complex subject into one that requires the proverbial rocket scientist to sort out!
And now some clever dick has decided that the problem can be solved with a new acronym! Where do they find these people?
What we need now is a radical shake up of the pension system but you will never get that from the current or prospective Government.
Politicians are not interested in dealing with the problem they simply want the best “sound bites” and the course of action least likely to come back to haunt them during their term of office.
This I predict is going to turn into a “Nest of Vipers”
