PLSA highlights danger of seeing workers as costs to be minimised in response to BEIS report

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) today named 260 employers for failing to pay 16,000 workers the minimum wage (press release here).

Luke Hildyard, Policy Lead for Stewardship and Corporate Governance, at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, commented:

“Pension funds represent more than 50% of all institutional investment in the UK and are long-term investors looking for solid returns¹. Today’s findings are depressing as not only are they indicative of a much wider failure of some UK businesses to put their workers at the heart of their long-term strategy but these issues have been highlighted before. 

“Our research on annual reports found that over 90% of FTSE 100 companies discuss their workers’ in relation to risk management, while fewer than half described them as a source of value creation. This kind of mind-set results not only in the pay practices exposed today, but can also be related to some of the problems the UK economy is experiencing in terms of productivity and skills shortages, seeing workers as a cost to be minimised rather than an asset to be nurtured.”

-Ends-

1. The Investment Association – Asset Management in the UK 2016 – 2017, pg. 48 

PRESS CONTACTS:

Lee Blackwell, Head of Media and PR, Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association

T: 020 7601 1726, M: 07713 073023, E: [email protected]

Kathryn Mortimer, Press Officer, Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association

T: 020 7601 1748, M: 07901 007713, E: [email protected]

Eleanor Carric, PR Manager, Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association

T: 020 7601 1718, M: 07825 171 446, E: [email protected]

NOTES TO EDITORS:

We’re the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association; the national association with a ninety year history of helping pension professionals run better pension schemes. Our members include over 1,300 pension schemes with 20 million members and £1 trillion in assets, and over 400 businesses. They make us the voice for pensions and lifetime savings in Westminster, Whitehall and Brussels.

Our purpose is simple: to help everyone to achieve a better income in retirement. We work to get more money into retirement savings, to get more value out of those savings and to build the confidence and understanding of savers.