Friday, October 24th, 2008
Only around a third of women reaching retirement age currently qualify for the whole amount. To get the full state pension, women must have 39 years of contributions and men 44 years. But millions fail to build up enough years because they take time off work to care for their families. The new legislation will slash the qualifying period for women from 39 to 30 years. It will also introduce new weekly national insurance credits which will recognise caring for children or the severely disabled in the same way as paid work.
Ministers say the reforms will mean an extra million people – 90% of them women - will build up entitlement to a state second pension from 2010, and by 2025 over 90% of women reaching pension age entitled to a full state pension.
Tags: national insurance credits, Pension, pension reform, state pension
Posted in Finance, Government, Pension | No Comments »
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
The Government has pledged £12m for a large-scale trial of a free personal finance service that will offer general advice on issues such as managing debt, budgeting, retirement planning and understanding financial jargon on a two-year trial. The “money guidance” pilot project was the main recommendation of the final report of a 14 month long work led by Otto Thoresen, chief executive of life insurer AEGON UK which proposed an impartial, sales-free, personalised advice service to help people better manage their money. The report also claimed that consumers could be more than £15bn better off if they had access to financial guidance over the next 50 years. Over the same period, it could save the government some £6bn through reductions in Pension Credit payments and other benefits and also make the financial services industry £5bn because they would benefit from lower levels of bad debt, a better relationship with consumers and a reduction in advertising and selling costs. The recommendations come at a time when Britons have raked up a record UK personal debt of £1.4 trillion and are increasingly feeling the effects of the credit crunch.
Tags: advice service, AEGON UK, budgeting, Credit crisis, Credit crunch, Debt Management, financial guidance, financial jargon, free financial advice, life insurer, money management, pension credit, personalised advice, pilot scheme, retirement planning
Posted in Consumer, Credit crisis, Credit crunch, Debt Management, Finance, Government, Pension, Personal Finance | No Comments »
Monday, December 17th, 2007
After five and a half years of campaigning by workers (who lost their pension when their company schemes were wound up), criticism from MPs, the Parliamentary Ombudsman and others, the government has finally backed down and now plans to offer more help. Originally between 10% and 12% of a person’s pension scheme would have been paid out. But this rescue package worth £2.9bn will payout 90% subject to an inflation-linked cap of £26,000. Final details of the plan will be confirmed in 2008. With 141,000 people affected, the question is how long will it take the government to make these much needed payments?
Tags: FAS, Pension, pension rescue, PPF
Posted in Investments, Pension, Personal Finance | No Comments »
