Helping Members run their schemes, September 2023 update

Providing comments, briefing journalists and trying to ensure the media debate about pensions is ‘well informed’ (not always easy....) are all part of the PLSA’s role as ‘the voice of workplace pensions’, so I was pleased to hear we are making progress.

Mark’s analysis shows that monthly PLSA mentions in the national press are roughly double what they were in January 2021. We have seen an increase in mentions in national titles from the FT to the Sun, via the Daily Mail, Guardian, Telegraph and many more. The chart below shows there is quite a bit of fluctuation, but the overall trend is clearly upwards.

Some of this coverage is reactive; there’s been plenty for us to comment on recently with the Government’s Mansion House proposals and I am sure our responses to these consultations, which we’ll publish this week, will generate more. But there are plenty of examples of our ‘thought leadership’ and PLSA-designed tools inspiring the story too – our Retirement Living Standards being the classic example.

Some of this reporting stems from our work in Parliament, where we’ve been busy briefing MPs and giving evidence to Select Committees. Key figures met in recent weeks have included the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Griffith MP, and Minister for Pensions Laura Trott MP – both around the Mansion House consultations again. Meanwhile, our Deputy Director of Policy, Joe Dabrowski, appeared in front the of the Work and Pensions Select Committee as part of their inquiry into DB pensions.

We’ll have plenty more for the media to report at our Annual Conference in Manchester (17-19 October), where we’ll launch further research on pensions adequacy and build on last year’s Five Steps to Better Pensions policy paper. The speaker line-up looks pretty good, too, with BBC presenter Amol Rajan, new TPR CEO Nausicaa Delfas and economist Noreena Hertz among the headliners. Delegate numbers are building up nicely and I hope to see you there. In the meantime, do let me know if you want more information about any of this work [email protected].