Annuity acuity

Financial Management (UK), June, 2008 by Bernard Potter

I am well into my retirement years now, having qualified in 1963, but still find FM an interesting read. I am registered as a member in practice and have been involved in pension issues for some years, serving as secretary of the Royal Ordnance Pensioners' Association and treasurer of the Occupational Pensioners' Alliance.

Of particular interest to me in the May issue were two apparently unrelated items. First, it was the news on page 1 that CIMA has 163,000 members and students. Second, it was the pair of articles on pensions in the Technical matters section.

Both articles were concerned with how various pension problems affect companies. CIMA has a specialist panel that focuses on these issues, but the institute seems to be ignoring the effects of pension problems on its members. As a pensioner, I hold strong views on these.

Presumably, CIMA was founded with the interests of its members in mind. In many ways it pursues these effectively, but I think pension provision has been neglected. I wonder if there should be a survey to see how many of the 163,000 have any pension provision, what the nature of it is and how those who have none plan to live in later life? I also wonder what retired members feel about the creeping deregulation that threatens our living standards, never mind its effect on employers.

There is a clear conflict of interest facing most of our members in employment: they are paid to look after their employers' interests, but if they have any sense they won't ignore their own future wellbeing. Pension provision is extremely important.

Bernard Potter FCMA