Latest Blogs
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Tilley: Will IHT reforms really threaten pension saving?
The Government’s decision to bring most unused pension funds and lump sum death benefits within the scope of inheritance tax (IHT) from 6 April 2027 has provoked widespread criticism from across the pensions industry. Providers, advisers and trade bodies have warned that the change risks undermining confidence in pension saving and damaging long term retirement provision.
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Lisa Webster: Charity giving from pensions
I’m sure many of you reading this on SIPPs Professional will have had more than a few conversations with clients about estate planning – especially considering the news that pensions are to be included in the value of the estate for IHT purposes from April 2027.
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Lisa Webster: Salary sacrifice cap will hit some hard
The headline story from Budget 2025 - in the pension world at least - was the plan to cap National Insurance relief for pension contributions paid through salary sacrifice at £2,000 a year.
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Lisa Webster: Pension age uncertainty lingers on
We’ve known for many years that normal minimum pension age, NMPA it's known, is going up.
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Tilley: Rebooting the FOS makes sense
I’ve written before about the lack of coherence in the UK’s pension complaints landscape and it remains a source of real frustration for those of us working in the sector.
Popular News
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SIPP investors remain bullish in 2026
SIPP investors remained bullish overall in the first quarter of 2026, according to new figures published by Hargreaves Lansdown.
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39% lack confidence about pension planning
Almost two in five, 39%, of people lack confidence with pension planning, while nearly half, 48%, said they don’t feel confident investing, according to a new study.
MPs have urged the Pensions Regulator to help employees who do opt-out due to financial difficulties during the pandemic to re-enrol than would happen normally under auto-enrolment.
Almost 9 in 10 of eligible employees (88%, 19.2m people) have saved for retirement through their workplace pension: an increase from 55% in 2012 when automatic-enrolment began, DWP figures have said.
However, pension participation among self-employed people continued to fall from 21% in 2009/10 to 14% in 2018/19.
The annual total amount saved for eligible employees was £98.4bn in 2019, an increase of £5.3bn from 2018.
£40.5bn was saved into public sector schemes (41%), with £57.9bn (59%) saved into private sector schemes.DWP data from December 2019 showed 5.44m people were employed in the public sector (16%) compared to 27.55m (84%) people in the private sector.
Following the release of the data, Hargreaves Lansdown shared concerns about the pension savings figures for the self-employed.
Nathan Long, interim head of policy at Hargreaves Lansdown said: “The self-employed continue to be precariously placed with just a handful choosing to save into a pension, showing the existing incentives just don’t resonate. The Government will also be acutely aware that 41% of all pension contributions go to public sector employees that represent less than a fifth of all workers.”
Almost two thirds of Britons surveyed (62%) that had received recent financial advice said they had detailed knowledge of Pension Freedoms, compared to a third (33%) of over-55s that had never received financial advice.
Adviser tech firm O&M, part of fintech Iress, is to provide free CPD-qualifying webinars on drawdown for advisers.
The Coronavirus pandemic has forced a widespread rethink of retirement plans as 18% change their retirement age and 20% of over-55s have considered raiding their pension savings, according to a new report.
The Pensions Regulator has so far issued 115,459 auto-enrolment fixed penalty notices since the start of the workplace pension scheme in 2012.