V-FM Pensions #176: Pensions UK Annual Conference - the good, the bad and the missing pension!

In this episode of VFM, we take a look back at Pensions UK. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to episode 176 of VFM. I'm Nick O'Asimal. And I'm Dylan Phil. Harry DARREN. I'm good, good. We've basically both just got back last night. We're recording on the Friday morning for the Pensions UK conference. So yeah, had a good few days. You got your prepositions in the wrong place there. We got back from the Pensions UK conference. We're recording on the Friday. We're not at Pensions UK today. We're not at Pensions UK. Yeah, we did get back last night, but we thought we would do a quick catch-up episode. Just reflecting on the conference of the past few days. You know, talk about some of the the chats that we're going on. And yeah, I think, yeah, it was a good conference. Obviously, as I said last week on the podcast, it was nice to be in the tent on the fringe. You were both. It was both. Yeah, I think one of the great things about the conference is you get to meet so many people. And there is stuff that goes on in the hall and in the exhibition, which is really good. But equally, there's lots of stuff that goes on outside. You know, we've talked about before about, you know, sometimes some organisations, including ourselves, you know, felt it was too costly. Sometimes it's difficult to judge, to justify the budget spend. Obviously, I introduced my co-memorship for this year. We took advantage of and enjoyed it. And the great thing about it is you bump into people that you haven't seen for years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is the really nice thing about it. And it's re-acquainting with people, which is really good, I find. Well, I'm sorry. I mean, the best thing about this podcast is that you bump into people you've never met before, who say, oh, I fully agree with you, Nick, okay? You know, or I disagree with you. And this is what you said that I disagree with. Oh, you're the guy that does the podcast. Yeah, yeah. So I got quite a lot of that, actually. Which is, which is nice. But yeah, there's good few days. So what we thought we would do is just reflect on a couple of you know, key things. So we had a couple of political speeches. We were saying Genie Drake, giving you an update on the pension. A political speech. A political speech indeed. Then you were on a panel. You were on the FM question time. And I did or untamed consulting, didn't event with more squared, could be on the bottom line on that Tuesday night. So you just reflect briefly on that. And then just any other I thought we could just chat about any other observations that we had about the conference. And one of the things I did, yeah, was I went over to the pensions regulator stand. And I actually logged on to my pension slash board. You know, I can talk a bit about that as well. I'm very jealous. It still haven't worked out how to do it. I need to. How does that all sound? You're asking me or are you asking the listeners? The listeners are going to say fantastic. Well, let's do that. Where do you want to start? Is there anything else you want to add or is there anything else you want to start? Well, I mean thoughts on the conference overall. I mean, so we'll come to the sort of content of your event. It was brilliant. It was in the one o'clock gun, which said people who don't know Liverpool and else amongst you on Monday. Essentially, the Albert Dock is a whole series of like little cubby holes, isn't it? Yeah. And having seen one on the other side, they're all quite similar. And they're quite tight. Yes. So I was wondering now that there are micro employers or micro members, whatever they're called, whether they shouldn't, whether the fringe shouldn't be in the building. There's no reason why they couldn't have put a room up for you guys. Yeah, I think there's some, you know, like we obviously had organized this before we got the micro membership. And, you know, we did some research along with Daniel Silcock. And basically, you know, the idea is to have that sort of more open, a bit more split and sort of type discussion. It's less polished. Yeah. So, you're in the bar area. It's people standing up, you know, milling around, have a bit of a, have a bit of a panel discussion. And what I liked about there, and I would say this wouldn't I, but quite often fringe stuff is, you know, drinks, kind of pace, you know, more of a social networking thing, which is great and it has its place. Yeah, it really does. Yeah. What we try to do is we try to sort of have some content and provide that platform for debate, discussion and challenge. I think that, you know, it's going to be an interesting one. You know, what the pensions UK relationship with the fringe actually looks like going forward. I think they're, I think they're trying to embrace it a bit more. Yeah. Which I think is a good thing. Obviously, you know, people pay a lot of money to put their confidence on, and sponsors pay a lot of money. And, and quite rightly, I think the pensions UK get, you know, they don't want people being taken away from sponsors from the exhibition hall, you know, what's actually going on within the event. So, I think we'll see it evolve over the next couple of years. Yeah. So, for me, the critical thing is like, so a lot of the stream events are basically adversorials in the conference itself. And I think that's a function of people having to spend so much now to sponsor because there's so many fewer people in the, you know, who are sponsoring in general. And, you know, the venue is the same size. And I think that the event is overall a bit smaller. So, that somebody at PUK has to do the math on this event. If the consequence of sort of retaining the size of it is essentially that the stream content becomes less, well, debatey, you know, I'm a natural contrarian. So, whenever one on stage is agreeing, I just think this is a con, right. So, what was great about your event, DARREN, is that you didn't all agree with each other. Oh, there's a big discussion. We were deliberately trying not to. Yeah. So, I don't know if there is a way to get, I mean, that was what was missing from the conference. There's a bit of that on the main stage. Yeah. And we can talk about my session in a little bit. But, you know, that's for me, the joy of PUK is that there are different ideas. Yes. And you wouldn't necessarily know it. If you didn't do anything on the main stage, and just sort of went to the stream event, and you'd have done, you know, eight, nine hours of content that way, then you might have thought that this is an industry in violent agreement. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's difficult, isn't it, because that other ways, one of the reasons I do this podcast with you is just to sort of hear different views and it gives us both an opportunity to sort of say what we think, question people, you know, challenge assumptions, challenge, invention. And, and you know, that, that's good. I think that because the sponsorship model, yeah, and you could see why you've got it. Yeah. Right. This is the criticism at all. Yeah. But because, you know, it costs a lot of money to exhibit, or, you know, run a stream session. I think organisations play it safe. Yeah. And, and I think that, you know, we need to be a bit more open, I think, as an industry to alternative points of use of being challenged, because, you know, from doing this podcast and probably doing well over 200 hours of content, there's not agreement. Yeah. And, but, but, but equally, there's no single right answer. No. Yeah. And, and, and I think that, you know, people are looking for that single right answer, or homogenised view, then they were missing a trick. But this is where I think the commercial nature of DC pensions, the commercial nature of investment management, investment consulting. If you look back over the last 30 years, you've gone from an industry with essentially amateur trustees, who maybe were taking investment lower case A advice from their actually, or maybe just sort of doing it, because one or two of them on the board were tax investors, through to the massive consolidation of DC workplace, even nest and TPP's a big spender at the conference. It might be not for profit, but it's certainly very commercial. Commercial entities do not want to hear that they're wrong. And so I think the locus of whether debaters has shifted from trustees to the commercial enterprises, and as a result it's quite a lot more boring as a conference. And you and I mate, this is the only place the pensions industry actually is non-commercial. That is our secret source, because everywhere else you go is pay-to-play. Yeah, and people often ask me, "Are you making any money at the podcast yet?" And I say, "Well, no." And they were like, "Well, why not?" I said, "Because I don't want to." Yeah, it wouldn't be the same podcast. We wouldn't. It's not pay-to-play. I don't want advertising or sponsorship. I'd rather use that time talking about the Arsenal War family and things like that. I mean, that's the thing that puts me off the rest of politics is when they talk to some amazing person and they go like, "Pampers are the greatest nappy providers. You're belittling yourself. You're demeaning yourself." But then what you need to do is just pay the subscription and then it cuts out all the adverse stuff. You can do that. Yeah, so I thought it was a good conference. We both, I was speaking on the French. You were speaking in the main conference hall. So, as you said, our French event was at the one o'clock gun and I'll be on the bottom line. Daniela Silcock, you've presented some research. I've got a little research flyer that I'll attach to the show notes. Great. So we don't have to sort of go through that in depth now. But Charlotte Moore was chairing. I was on the panel, you know, along with Kyle Emerson from London Economics, formerly of the IFS and Joey Butcher from Scottish Windows. I think we just had a really good old-fashioned debate in discussion, didn't we? I think there wasn't slides. There wasn't projectors. What we were trying to do is just pick up points of agreement. So Daniela did this research and she interviewed. I think it was like 9 or 10 providers, operators within the workplace pension space. And what she was trying to do was just sort of get under the skin off the concerns of those companies, what was driving, they know their decision-making. And it was quite interesting that the themes that came up within that research do chime with a lot of the themes that we're talking about in this podcast. Right. And I know when you were doing lots of work on the value for money consultation responses and I think you gave the industry a sort of a rallying call to say, look, you know, there are problems within this approach and you need to engage. You need to sort of get into DWP and the regulators and tell them, you know, where they've got this stuff wrong and why they've got it wrong. I think that one of the things it's bringing out is there is a disconnect between what people think, yeah, and truly believe what people actually say. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we've talked before about, you know, if you're a large player, even if you're not a large player, if you want to be, you know, influencing the environment, there's a calculation to be done. You know, do you want to be in its end or out the tent? And I think that, you know, we're too small people as equal as an industry. And I don't think we always talk truth to power in an effective way. I think that, you know, what you don't want to do is to, you know, get chucked out of them. Yeah. I don't mean physically on that. But I think that does happen. Yeah. And this is where, you know, the commercialization, but I think the absence of, I don't know if the actual profession has would do this anymore. But again, it has a public interest GT. I don't think the P.U.K. the policy arm of the P.U.K. has, I mean, Zoe is walked two years in. There's been quite a lot of change on the policy side. So he's maybe three years in. No, she's. I think it's two years ago. Yeah. And obviously Phil is kind of newer. So I don't know if there's been a little bit of a sort of, you know, reconnecting with government that P.U.K. needs to do. But I mean, the trade bodies always have this kind of lowest common denominator problem. Certainly in their written responses. I think, you know, the end prison you close problem is really, really dangerous. And again, the commercial enterprises don't want to be at the room. It's so existential in workplace to not be allowed to talk to Torsten, because you've told him the truth once. I do think, well, we'll come on to Torsten speech in a minute. But I do get the sense that that is who he is. He's not a massive fan of people disagreeing with him. It had been on this podcast otherwise. And, you know, the where is the debate happening? It's right here. This is where the debate is. Indeed, indeed. Yeah. So just a couple of things. I don't know what's going on Friday on Tuesday. Exactly. Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things. I want to scroll out. I think, was it you asked the question, what would you drop out there, all the different initiatives? And I think myself and quite a few, the panelists were saying scale. Yeah. And I think, you know, speaking to people afterwards, it was, you know, yes, the scale test is probably unnecessary. Yeah. No, you've got, if you've got VFM and VFM working well, then the scale test is unnecessary. Yeah. Well, once you get above a certain site is, yeah, you've got a chance, a good chance of being VFM. Now, whether you take that chance or not, it's another matter. Well, the gods give you your chance. Yes. Yeah. No, no, yes. Well, I wanted to talk to you a bit about that. Because, you know, you, because I think you made some really good remarks on your panel. But I think that, you know, once you're above, you know, 25 billion, just a crazy number. Yeah. It's far too high, you know, and obviously it's done for other reasons. I also think that, you know, if you, if you could have had two, you'd have said a reformed VFM or changed VFM. Yeah. Because I think that, you know, like the VFM stuff that they're doing at the moment, and this sort of segues into your panel a bit. But, you know, sometimes it could risk doing more harm than good. Oh, absolutely. And, and there's ulterior motives, or I was going to say hidden motives, but they're not hidden because Torsten was quite clear in his talk. Yeah. You know, about actually, he's hurting that bunch. Is that a bad thing? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So, so I think that, you know, they, they were some of the things that came out of the, out of the discussion. There was, there was a lot more. Yeah. It was great to see 70 people there. No, we had the likes of Tom McPhad and the audience, Joe Combo. I heard them. So it was, it was really nice. So thank you for coming along and supporting it. You had probably a hundred guests of VFM. Of the VFM. Which, you know, it's a, it's a real market quality if you've been on this podcast. So, it was, it was a fantastic space. Cool. Is that a next David Butcher? I know. You did. Yeah. So Simon Christel asked the question. Yeah. Yeah. James Monk was there. Did I see Ian McCaid? Yeah. Ian McCaid was there for me. Yeah. I didn't see him for the rest of the conference. So, I don't think he was inside. Oh, right. Okay. I think he was very much fringing and obviously too big a business benefit from the micro membership. This is a, you know, a good place to be. A good place to be. It was one of those rooms that you look around. It's a bit like being at like your best friend's wedding and you sort of recognise at least 50% of the faces. Yeah. More. Yeah. No, it's a really lovely safe space. You know, what I've said several times over the last three days, the pensions people are the best people, right? I mean, this is an industry that, you know, the people get stuck in it because of the empathy that they have for other humans and the difficulties that we put through them through for this whole like, you know, let's try and enable you not to have to work until you die. And yeah, it was a, it was a lovely, lovely, lovely time. Good. So, you on stage as well? I was. Yeah. I'm on the big stage. And you did a VFM time which is chaired by J. Mee from Edge, Chair of Pensions UK, and Patrick Evely from People's was on the panel as was Charlotte Clark from the FCA and Richard Knox from the Pensions regulator. I've worked with everyone on that panel. I was talking to both Richard and Charlotte about coming on the podcast, so yeah, we are working on that at the moment. So, yeah, it's funny, so the question time format, I mean, did it work? You tell me. I think so, I think I thought it was a really good session, yeah, I really enjoyed the session. I think that maybe we described as planted questions, and actually the question time format isn't planted questions, but yeah, so I think the positioning was slightly out. I think that was JB's. Yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe. So putting that to one side, I think sometimes having a series of questions, like they do with question time, yeah, so this is the agenda, this is what we're going to discuss, yeah, can actually work, yeah, and it works quite well, because basically you're just taking the responsibility from the chair and giving it to the audience, yeah. I think that you need longer, like it was a 45 minute session, yeah, and it felt like it was a bit rushed and a bit tight, and I think that, you know, the more time needed to be given to audience interaction, yeah, so I don't know that that's the common feedback, just on the timing, your patience and interest in this topic is maybe different to a lot of things. Maybe, but, but it's conferences. So people want, I mean, generally, the sort of mantra is like sort of 30 minutes lots and just like keep things moving along. I mean, I can sit through an hour and a half, yeah, so it's, yeah, so I was talking to Helen and Foist all as you were saying, oh, it should have been not last thing, yeah, and also you needed an hour, yeah, because I think that and you could have done that with pace, but in a way, what you want is really sure interventions from the floor and bring in the audience in a bit more and having a bit more of a conversation. It's hard to do, it's really hard to do. So in the question time format, because, of course, they could cover anything in politics, then each question is quite distinct and it's unlikely or maybe not impossible, but unlikely that your answer to one question is going to trip into something else. Quite often, the opposition will say, you know, we're a labor of done this thing in the Pione Bruce or on what's the other one called, any questions, you know, that Alex, Anita Ramada, which she's called, we'll go like, well, don't go there because there might be a question on that coming up. But on this, obviously, all of the questions blended to each other because they're all about value for money. So it was quite that part of it, I think. That makes it more tricky. Yeah. But yeah, so I mean, look, I really enjoyed it. I was the controversialist on the panel. I'm used to that. And, you know, a lot of people came up to me afterwards. So I mean, there's, there's, I won't reprise. We shouldn't reprise the whole session, but so the kind of question of what would you do about value for money, given where we've got to? If you have to go ahead, I do think the sanctions regime is the, is the responsibility for the hurting is going to be the responsibility for the, just the random death, walking the halls of the workplace pensions market. You know, any one of them can trip up and be an honor, kind of objective basis, bottom of the performance table. So this is the way it's, it's like the consequences are huge. Yeah. Absolutely huge. And, you know, I was being slightly controversial at my event, where, you know, I was asked what would a success look like. Yeah. And I said something like, oh, you know, to provide two big household name providers, you know, are we're rated when they kicked out? Yeah. Yeah. So because, because basically, you know, and part of that is talking to you, you know, I don't want that to happen, you know, and I think Charlotte at their conference was saying, well, that's not their judge of success because they want everyone to reach that minimum bar and be value for money. But, but then you just sort of think it through and it's, well, if you're going to have a sanctions and penalties regime, and if you want to, you know, make sure everyone's going to be good for you, and almost that has to happen. Right. Yeah. And I think the consequences are huge and they don't allow enough time or them for improvement. Yeah. Also, I think as big an issue, yeah, is the market of your own homework? Yeah. Well, so look, I mean, Charlotte's answer, right? Let's take ourselves out of pensions and put our economics hats on. What do you call a market where everything is the same price and value? That's, that's a cartel, right? That's price fixing. So we've got a regulator encouraging cartels in the pensions market. I mean, I know that the US president is encouraging, actually, sorry, that's unfair, that the cartel of open AI, anthropic, rock, all want to create this price fixing mechanism, so that they're leading AI is protected. But Donald Trump, I mean, there's a number of things that I agree with on Donald Trump. It's about 2%. But like this sense that like, no, you are, you're there to compete. We can't possibly draw up a cartel. We have the pensions regulator saying it would be a good outcome if everyone is like green. That's not value for money. That is not the concept of value for money. That is just a clustered performance table, which could be the outcome. And that was another topic that came up, which is like, she seems to think that we're not trying to have this herding effect. And then Torsten, and I said in response, I think we pretty much are, and then Torsten on stage in kind of, frankly, too many words asked a question by Stuart Patterson, said, yeah, we are. So let's get the regulator and Torsten Bail speaking to each other, because that has consequences too. The final thing actually just on the same topic is you say, it's two high street names. People come up to me and whisper high street names. They say, so who might it be? And actually, the death of this policy was whispered to me by three or four different people, which is nest. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've, people have whispered exactly the same to me as well. And why nest? Because of their private markets, like, this is, we're through the looking glass now, people, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is, we, you know, I think, because they have the in private, um, scorings, right? For a year, and then they have the public scorings. I just wonder, is it in private scoring? Or is it, I thought there was going to be published the first ones, the first round? I really, but without the sanctions, yeah. It was even if, okay. So, so let's just hypothesize. So you publish that nest is amber. What is it for the policy? Oh, I mean, that's it. Right. So, so, so, but then as you say, if we're looking at some, I'm glad you've raised this thing, okay? Because I've been thinking about, I'm dropping it into the podcast for a while, but I didn't want to be there, didn't want to be accused of trouble making, but as you've done it now, this is the rumor on the conference floor. I can't say I'm the originator of it. Like, you're not the only, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't surprise me that you're mentioning that. Yeah. Because a number of people have said that to me as well. Yeah. And then I start thinking with my policy hat on, and I think there was a question, um, that was on the app, the VFM session, yeah, it was actually. Yeah, you know, what, what, what happens if nest has to close to new employers? Yeah. Yeah. They have a public service obligation in law, right? To accept any employer of any size. Yeah. You know, and that's, and that's where you get to be looking at. So there's the, also we have to take it in to Cornelius to court. Or, or, or, or, or is it Charlotte Clarke? Richard Knox. It's just like, yeah. But, but also I think, you know, like, putting, putting, putting, but is this where Torston's hubris, you know, that he is Icarus, and this is the son melting his wings, and we just see him flying to earth. Um, because I mean, this is, is Guy Oppermann's policy, right? He could have torn this up. He could have walked in and went, you know, these aren't, we're not comparing baked beans here. Um, you can't really have a value for money measure in a 60 year, you know, deferred gratification product. He could have done that. Yeah. He could have, he could have used his smarts and resolution foundation. But what do we, what do we want to do that? Like, you know, there's, there's lots of different ways of managing value for money. Yeah, and on your panel page. was talking a lot about you know transparency yeah yeah I'd love to have better performance transparency yeah well it's not just performance transparency you know I think it's you know just better transparency full stop yeah whether it's you know and that should be you know if your industry professionals to keep the tyres also for greater better transparency for individuals you know I want I'd like to know how my workplace pension provider is doing vis-a-vis a you know others within the market and that compatibility is a good thing yeah and I think that this is where I mean and maybe it's my you know spectrum autism but like they were not talking about value for money you're not talking about value for money you're talking about performance yes and I've got no issue with you know they're being a national database with daily unites prices that anyone can put their national insurance number into and you it works out you're five different providers and says this one gave you two percent per annum more than this one that I've got no issue with that whatsoever I think it means we need a pot for life market so that I can actually react to it oh this is a thing and this is a question that right we did but there wasn't a lot of pot for life chatter no I didn't hear it once but I do think there is this you know you talked a bit about the FM retail on your but I don't quite think we thought the architecture through yeah well I don't think we thought about it once since the first pension's commission yeah you've just pointed out something which I hadn't occurred to me which is that Ness has an obligation in law to accept that employer and might get close to new employers I mean I mean it feels like the paradox I mentioned two weeks ago yeah yeah so the other thing you said as well is that you know you wrote you did your usual and past performance isn't a guide to future performance you know but basically you know you also said that a lot of investment is down to luck yeah yeah you know and and I think that you know this is what we need to be really careful about you know what we measure what we report on yeah and how we use that information and then how that is directly translated into into sanctions yeah you know because it's almost like well you know and then this comes into third-in-point as well so you know toss them as saying you know yes well well and we've always suspected this to be fair yeah that in a world where the employer buys the end beneficiaries in the in the you know it doesn't have any say over what pension proficient they're in because we don't have pork for life then you know you're in a more concentrated market where dispersion of outcomes yeah it's not necessarily a good thing and having everyone in a close-custom around an average outcome is probably more comfortable for the policy and from the market perspective of what government is trying to achieve yeah and yeah you you talked about the birdson effect there's the okay I think it was said that you needed we want to get rid of the ones at the bottom yeah yeah but equally you know you are going to be all to your luck point am I going to sort of want to do anything different on my peers yeah actually I'd rather play a small-sea conservative you know therefore you know I don't think you're going to get the peloton effect yeah I think what you're going to get is the just a concentration around a low average because people will be less innovative well I mean I'd whether the peloton is slower than you know all the individuals or not I mean I genuinely don't know the point of the peloton is actually more to me systemic risk which is essentially that all of the UK pensions industry you know if you fast forward 30 years all of the UK pensions industry is what two and a half three trillion pounds is reacting to the same market events in exactly the same way right and you know you're quite a big gorilla bouncing around in a little rowing boat very pro cyclical you know you potentially in a world where people feel richer and poorer because of the dashboard visibility because of that performance table you know portal and we know that the Americans who have a lot of securities in their kind of day-to-day savings accounts spend more money when the stock market is higher and they spend less money when the stock market is lower and you're just introducing this thing that is is is not it is new to British culture which is you know a the market effect of having these big gorillas bouncing around the boat and we did do I mean we saw with the we're not allowed to call it the LDI crisis so we but the guilt crisis where the pension's market the DB pension's market was the gorilla bouncing around in the guilt market and you know the equity market I think is a lot bigger but only because we're allowed to have overseas investments we'll see what governments of the future get to and of course we're delisting a lot of the UK anyway so I mean it's just it's again if you went to the Bank of England and said look we're going to have 10 I don't know what they're going to be 200 billion pound institutions all investing in exactly the same equities and bonds and all having the same kind of rebalancing programs when there's a market crash Andrew Bailey would say like please don't put that on my successors desk just just please do not also I think yeah this is becoming or it has a potential to become so systemic then you know we've talked about our regulatory structure and frameworks and number of regulators and that before right you know like where's the P.I. well in regulating this market obviously they potentially regulate insurance companies so they got part of the market covered from that systemic side of things I'm sure after the you know guilt crisis they are a bit more proactive in looking at pension funds and understanding some of the risks around pension funds you know I think that's probably a bit of an oversight before speculating but I think you know is there a question to bring some of these mega schemes under you know proper PRA credentials supervision a lot better than a sanctions regime with their phone for sure yeah yeah well so yeah what are the other things that you you sit on the panel was around and I think it was to do with the market on your own homework yeah yeah talking about the difference between IGC's and trusty bodies and I think you know you were saying well actually within the IGC is more appropriate for an IGC to mark the homework of the provider and then it is for a trusty board yeah because basically you can argue about how independent independence governing committees are and the powers and all of that type of stuff and how much influence they actually have yeah but you know if they are doing their jobs effectively they are independent yeah they are separate from the provider and they don't have any fiduciary duty they don't have any consideration making powers yeah yeah so they're not driving the bus you know they're not driving the bus yeah they need to make sure that the bus being driven yeah is safe yeah and roadworthy and you know has got a plan from getting from B2B and hasn't had a crash and hasn't had a crash yeah was in trusty environment yeah they are the bus driver they are the bus driver yeah they're not just the bus driver yeah they also mark the you know yeah so so another they also decided you should be on a different bus yeah but I don't think yeah yeah but I just don't think that we we this is all being brought through from a systems perspective well this is the craziness I think of the the punches acts 26 that you know what's the bill there's a debate over fiduciary duty and these systemic what do they call that I don't think they did call them systemic risks today systemic opportunities I can't remember systems thinking maybe it was I want to be able to employ systems thinking it's like the most anti-systemic thinking thing you could say and it's still like oh we can you know with with the dear old share action and Catherine like magic wand wave over the tiny institutions to like upgrade their brains in law upgrade their advice upgrade their potential to act and therefore scale I think that you know anyway but nothing about the fiduciary duty of essentially both creating an investment strategy and as you say and I did say on stage, we know they're not creating the investment strategy, but they are understanding it. They are presenting to the world that they did design it. But both doing that and saying it is a value for money investment strategy in this sanctions regime, which gives them the, you know, pays them next month. And then also the consequence of them saying you shouldn't, we shouldn't continue to exist is for that same set of trustees to go and find another provider. Therefore, find another set of, you know, draws from a random earn of performance and presumably be liable for it. Because you'd be liable as a seeding trustee for the decision making that you have in around, you know, the evidence you take at the point of departure to another trust. So this is just, how can the debate have been on such a self-serving thing from the misunderstood thing from the climate change community and not at all on, like, the fundamentals of trustee's ship? Well, always, you know, we talked quite a lot on the podcast about sort of structure of the industry, you know, and the relationship between sort of trustees and providers, especially in that sort of commercial full-profit environment, you know, and, you know, there's always been that tension there. You know, when I ask questions and conferences on this, people just turn around and say, we have robust meetings, we have lots of challenge, but, you know, we want to make sure that the provider and the trustee is aligned, yeah. And of course, alignment is a good thing, and you want the trustees and the provider to work together, you know, that's all fantastic, yeah. However, yeah, there's a big however in this, the legal considerations and the, the action objectives of the trustees and the providers, you know, are always aligned, yeah. And I just don't think that we've actually stepped back and thought about what trustee's ship looks like in a commercial, more so trustee. Well, I don't think we thought about pension scheme governance. So if you think the LGPS has been told, you have to be OCIOs, the pools, you have to have FCA permissions, you have, we haven't done that to workplace pensions. We haven't said, look, your master trust, your GPP has to have a CIO. You know, who is the CIO? If you look across, and I don't mean the organizational CIO, I mean, the product CIO, if you look across the, the arrangements which are going to get ready for money tests, what number of them have CIOs? You know, I would say half probably fewer. Like WTW doesn't call Andrew Doyle as CIOs, he's like their chief advisor. I think Joe Sharples is CIOs solutions and not the master trust. I don't think any of the insurance ones have a CIO, they all have CIOs, but I don't think any of them have a product CIO. And therefore you go, well, okay, so if it goes wrong, who am I firing to put a change in strategy in place? And the answer is the trustees. It's just like, what? So this is the issue. And you know, I think we had a long overdue of discussion. We've taken this single employer trust trustee model into master trust and said it is literally the opposite, but we'll treat it as exactly the same. Yes, yeah, yeah, that is it. And who would do this job is a critical problem now? There's a critical critical problem because you're not allowed to say no, and you're blamed for saying yes. So I love the trustees that I see, but I think if I look at the trustees coming through, the quality is getting lower. You know, so we had an extra answer in the exchequer as a trustee and at part, please. We had Lawson, you know, where is Gordon Brown in the trustee market? Or maybe a better example is Hammond or where are these guys? They won't touch you with the barge pool. They're Lawson, well, well, sheltered doing this stuff. Where is Mervin King? They're not out there because this is a disastrous choice for someone with actual money that your, you know, lawyers could go after. So yeah, I don't know what's going to. There is a trustee review thing. It seems much more about the professionals and independence and the conflicts that you talk about. And not this, but we should have to see. So we talk about the politics. Yeah, it's talking about politics. The politics we're presented. Not the lower case P actual problems of politics. Well, we've already talked a bit about some of it anyway. There comes, there comes out. Yeah, we mentioned Lawson. I think that the thing I wanted to sort of pick up on, yeah, there's been some Twitter action on this from Tom McFail as well, is the whole speculation around tax free cash ahead of the budget. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think, you know, Lawson was like, come on, guys, stop being so irresponsible. Yeah. Which he also said last year, right? Which he also said last year. Or maybe it was in Edinburgh. Yeah. I told Tom explicitly in person. Yeah, they have, they have a, I was going to say, love hate relationship, but I think it's a hate relationship. Yes. Yes. And then, and then I think you had Helen who was talking about, like, we need to end the speculation. So, you know, chance was to commit a before budget, yeah, that they're not going to make any changes to give people that certainty. Yeah. And, you know, the trouble about tax policy, yeah, is even if you say, we're not going to change tax policy. Yeah. So basically, if the government in the run up to a budget, turn around and said, okay, in the budget in free bombs time, we're definitely not check touching pensions tax week cash. Right. And we promise, hand on hard, that we're not going to do that to avoid all the speculation. Right. That, that sorts the problem for that year. Right. The next year, yeah, if the government doesn't make exactly that same statement, three months before the budget, yeah, even if they're a day later. Yeah. Everyone's going to be, oh, they're not going to commit to it. There's definitely going to be changes that budget, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this is really tricky. Yeah. Because how, you know, I've blocked about this. I've blocked about it in pensions expert. And, you know, the, the, there was massive damage done before the budget last year. Yeah. Right. But I think there's a difference, yeah, between when they fly kites on tax policy, which they do. Yeah. Right. And this is where ministers and the politicians can't have it always. Yeah. Right. Because quite often they're the ones fueled in this speculation by flying some kites and stuff with the industry in them. Yeah. But equally, I don't think you can pre commit to physical policy. Because as soon as you don't pre commit, yeah. Then, oh, there's going to be a change then, isn't that? And, and I think there's, there's something interesting in this in terms of, you know, how can you get that long-term, term stability, that not just the industry needs, like, but actually more importantly, that the members need and the savers need. Yeah. You know, but equally, we know that tax policy, yeah, has to change from time to time. Yeah. Well, and in a way, and this is so difficult to do, but I asked a question with Janie on in her session around tax and given how much tax, you know, how much the government spends on tax relief, do we need to sort of fundamentally look at the system? Yeah. And, you know, she quite rightly said. But, you know, the pensions commissions, we may specifically exclude tax. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, well, yeah, I knew that, obviously. But again, how can you think about the system and build that long-term consensus? You know, if you're not including tax within that given the given given, given how big a part of the system for us, it actually is. Yeah. If you've had the announcement on the triple lock that we talked about, you've got a separate state pension age review. You know, even though we have this commission, there's lots of partial stuff going on outside that. And I think that, you know, that's where we're to potentially missing a trick on this. Because I think that, you know, if you wanted that long-term stability, yeah, if you wanted that consensus, then that's how you build it through tax policy. Now, no chance to in their right mind is going to pre-commit tax policies for, you know, for evermore. Yeah. And you can see how each politician or each political party boxes each each other in by saying no increases in the big free toe. taxes for the range of the next parliament, but it's madness. It's a triple lock. It's like committing to the triple lock. You're basically saying, okay, I'm happy to manage the economy and deal with anything with two hands time behind my backs in the next five years. I get it from a political point of view point, but from a policy view point, it's absolute madness. We do need disability, and I think by having that longer term framework and being clear on what we want the system to achieve is the way that you can do that. Also, I think providers, this is where I would agree with some of Thorsten what it said. People get PR out of going around and say, oh, yeah, you're worried about tax reform. You can't speak to an advisor. There's not a pure aspotivation from some of the industry on this either. I thought the call from Helen to say all the government needs to almost pre-commit on tax policy. I thought it was quite interesting because it's a very easy thing to say in opposition. Be careful what you wish for, because when you're in power, it's about to bite you. I thought Helen gave a good speech. I'd probably give her six or seven out of ten. I don't think she said anything desperately surprising, but she had a nice turn of phrase in a couple of places. She was exactly as we predicted on the mansion house, or particularly the reserve power and saying that they'll come out. She said on the forward-looking assumptions in VFM, she said we cannot allow optimistic projections over or I think poor performance, which I think is really an important thing to say. Obviously, the triple lock, so she's a defender of the triple lock. I mean, then Torsten, the next day, explained essentially that means raising the age of retirements to 71, I think. That's the consequence of keeping the triple lock. That's 50 billion a year and the 4950 financial years. I think I asked a question on the Bible. Why were they so critical of the triple lock announcement, but more importantly, what the Tories do to ensure that the state pension was adequate and sustainable? Sustainability thing is a key part of it. I didn't really get an answer to the question because what Helen turned around and said was, Andy Burnham summons don't add up because he's only going to save this amount and he wants to fund this social care point. I think joining out with social care, there's a debate and discussion to be heard about that, changing the triple lock is not going to pay for social care. However, I think what you want opposition parties to have is easy to chuck stones, but what is the alternative? What are their principles and what are the outcomes that they are looking to achieve from the system? Helen sat down for questions and I thought she was much weaker against questions. She didn't necessarily know the full brief, I guess. She just changed the topic on the LGPS, but the bit I was most disappointed with was the contributions under also enrollment, where we just had the same shit that we've been stuck with on this for decades now, which is we can't afford it right now. The Australians planned out, I think, 15 years in advance, had two recessions and extended that to 20 years. That's the way we need to do it. Essentially, we can't do the planning now because we can't afford it, it's just ridiculous. There's a big debate and Karl Emerson, we need to get Karl on and that research that he presented is about essentially, should you segment the populations at different contribution rates or different thresholds applied to different people. There is that part of the discussion, but the thought that essentially, if we vote in the Tories in 29, that there won't be a discussion about raising auto and borrowerment minima from 8% until we vote them out in 34, it's crazy to me, absolutely terrifying. There is an adequacy challenge and we need a long-term plan for pensions and retirement adequacy. What you need to do is you need to set out that forward path, have the forward path kick in in quite a few years' time, but then stick to that path. That's quite compelling. That's what the Australian said. They might have had one or two adjustments, but they pretty much stuck to the path. I think white politicians are running scared on this, it's short term versus long term. If you're going to increase contributions, I think the heavy lifting will have to be done by employees. I think that our economic environment and our business environment is so screwed at the moment. Some of it just because of regulations, some of it because of just economic circumstances, some of it because of government tax policy. They're actually realizing that the bits of squeaking on this and even to recommit on something like that. They would have to use up quite a lot of political capital and that means that they can't squeak, get another picture squeak. The bits are ready squeak, essentially. The phrase the K-shaped economy, which is essentially for the bottom two thirds probably of the population, the more you are the less you receive. Then all of a sudden it flips, so you get this really squeezed piece. The structure of the state pension, the structure of the benefits and I know that they need to be reformed, there are still disincentives to work. There's a labor supply problem here as well. Putting a quarter of a percent on contributions per annum for the next 10 years, surely there's a pathway that doesn't can employ us. There's a whole bunch of other stuff you need to do to business and then red tape you need to pull away. That is the point. Basically, we've talked a lot about the employer, national insurance, English, and I think that killed proper consideration of this policy. We definitely can't go there now. Are the sales advice? Exactly, exactly. It's why things like the pension commissions are important. But also, I think you're right, that it's not just about immediate costs on employers like national insurance. I think it's the wider retake of regulations. I can't remember the numbers, but the middle-sized businesses, basically withdrawing from exporting to Europe. It's just good to the paperwork. You've got the employment to it, stuff. You can argue this both ways, you can have different points of view. It means that employers are massively more reluctant to equip because the cost of equipment and the cost of getting it wrong. I just say much higher. We should quickly talk about Torston's speech. Torston's speech was basically the pension's commission of speech. He talks about the interaction of the two pillars. He defended the adjusted triple lock is how they're positioning it because there's still three things in it. Torston can be, what word did someone use to me? Actually, it's not appropriate. But he's a bit of a knob. So he's able to be sort of witty in a, he's a sort of a head boy way, but he can be so sarcastic in his way that I think it's off putting. But at one point he was going like, you can see it's a triple lock because there's three things in there and he said something like, you clock that didn't you? So triple means three. Yeah, cheers mate. Yeah, I know you're a brain, but that doesn't mean everyone else is a nothing. So yeah, he gave the pension's commission of speech. He massively overran his, his a lot of 20 minutes. He probably did 45. But he was very, very good. I mean, I give them like a nine out 10. I thought he was, I mean, I know Tom McPhail wouldn't. But I mean, he was very entertaining and I think I commented last time he gave a pitch to be charged to the extreca. He didn't give a pension's minister speech this time. But the great strategy here is that that removed time for questions as he overspoke. If I'd been Zoe and I don't know how feasible this is, I'd have just said, look, you know, we booked you for 30 minutes of questions. So we're going to do 30 minutes of questions. And you know, if you'd spoken for three hours, this session would be three and a half hours long. And, but instead it was, it was a bit squeaky. So he had rushed, rushed a couple of questions. And yeah, it didn't really say much, you know, so the, the pattern question was, as I said, as two patterns, you know, essentially is, we deliberately trying to hurt the industry. Previously, you see, that would be a question on the panel that the night before with me. And I think both Richard and Charlotte had said, no, no, no, we, you know, we don't want to hurting. And I said, oh, I'm pretty sure Torsten does want herding. And then he said, essentially, I do want herding, but he used, you know, 200 words to say that said, you won't get the quote from him on that. And yeah, so I mean, it was an interesting contrast between the two. Torsten is very cock sure is the word. I think I should, I should use that's, that's, that's who he is, right? He knows his brief. He's a super brain. He's an ideologue. We saw his ideology. I think reasonably clearly. He talked a lot about the trust rebuilding the trust in the pensions industry. But then I just don't know that actually his policy suite are going to do that. You know, or that it's possible. I mean, financial services are not trusted. You know, banks are not trusted insurance companies. We have a terrible experience of making claims. You know, the financial services are not, are not particularly trusted. So making us as trusted as, as like little or something, I don't know, we shouldn't see. And then, you know, in the world of being such a commercial industry who kind of really refuses to say anything, which the PR agents haven't signed off. I don't think you can foster trust without authenticity, to be honest. So I think that's, that's the difficulty here is that as soon as the, the media engagement with these pension schemes is these sort of incredibly polished and yet sort of quite amateurish sort of sort of positioning. So yeah, interesting times, interesting, good to be back. Yeah, and yeah, I think there was also I think there's some slides that tossed them up because it's quite often it's unusual sometimes for a pension minister to talk with slides. I would think Steve Web might have done it. But again, Steve is quite academic as well. Right. But there was, there was, I think he's on X or Twitter. Yeah, I think to us to put them out, but you know, slide demonstrating, you know, to trust in confidence point. Yeah, there's an interesting one, which was the sheer volume of people that just do not think the state pension is going to be around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And by age, yeah, and by age. And it's like, you know, if you're in your 20s, it's like, is this thing going to be around? No, I don't trust them. But actually, it's still quite for older people as well. Well, and by sex as well. So women more cynical of the pension of the state pension than men, which may be speaks to our optimists and buyers. Yes, it might be, it might be. Okay, that's cool. One thing I did want to discuss was my dashboard experience Nikkei. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, I've signed up for the trial of the pensions dashboard, but I never heard heard back. Yeah, it was me too, you know, you know, you know, dated. But I think it was the pensions regulator and maps where, you know, running, you can log on to your, you pay your pensions dashboard and you could do it within the exhibition hall. So I thought, okay, well, I'm definitely going to have to do this. If I don't do it, which is Smith is going to kill me. So yeah, you need on one golf login. Right, which I didn't have. Actually, yeah, I had a government gateway. I didn't have one. But so I signed up for that and the exhibition hall on my phone. Yeah, did that didn't take long at all. Right. Then went on to the dashboard, entered my details. It was, it was really simple, really clear. I wouldn't say it was busy, yeah, but obviously the government, the government websites are specifically designed to be really high accessibility ratings. So, you know, there's not lots of graphics as you know, it's quite plain text. It's very, very accessible. So I, yeah, entered my details. Optional, do you want to give us your national insurance number? Have you ever been known by any other name? Answered a few questions like that. Press the button. It was like, we're going to, we're going to find your pensions. Yeah. I did it. Find your pensions. Well, this is the big test, isn't it? This is the big test. So, let me guess. They had, they had someone on the stand when it's like, you know, just waiting in anticipation. Yeah, you know, you know, you know. So, 75%. Okay. How many pensions you got for? So basically, it was the state pension came through as what I expected. People's pension and small pension came through. Yeah. That's quite a big one, isn't it? And then, you know, like, and then, you know, to finish the positive, you know, you can drill down into them. And you know, it's, it's, it's actually pretty good. Yeah. And they're doing lots of testing on it. Yeah. And I didn't spend a long time using it, but I thought, you know, this is, this is going to be really helpful. And I'm pleased it's got to this point. So, you know, huge congratulate. I know it's been a long time coming. But, you know, huge congratulations to everyone that's worked on this. Yeah. And I think the connection deadline is the, it's their 31st of October. So, it's the end of this month. Right. And the pension that wasn't on there was my civil service pension. Yeah. So, my 13 years of defiant benefit pension from HM Treasury. Yeah. Crazy. Um, it was, was not on, on the pension's dashboard. Now, I don't think, you know, I think it's quite well documented some of the problems that the civil service pension is, is, you know, having at the moment. So, if you subscribe to private, I, yeah, exactly, exactly. Um, but you, you know, you would, you would, you know, you would think that, you know, the government should be able to get its own things right on this, you know, especially if it's, you know, you know, it's, it's put all these requirements on the way to industry, you know, the wider industries respond in. And, and you know, like it's got 15 days to sort this out. Yeah. Or, you know, it's got 15 days to sort this out. What's the notion to get fines? Yeah. I'd imagine so. I'd imagine so. You know, I mean, we can't, to must be fined more than they charge. So, you know, but yeah, but the beauty of it, Nick, out is on the 31st, yeah, I can go on. And I can check for my civil service pension is on the, because I've never got a link and I can keep going back in. So, you know, which is, which is what I should have done this. Yeah. I'm just a pro now. Just a longer a bob or whatever. I will be able to, you know, give a running commentary and a live update, because I doubt there'll be a press release on it. Of whether civil service pension scheme is connected to the dashboard by the connection deadline. So, I'm just like, you know, glass off from about it. It was, you know, I thought it was, it was easy to use. It was clear. It was simple. You know, it was quite basic. Yeah. But that's not necessarily bad thing. It was just missing, you know, 60% 70% of your retirement income. Well, actually, I suppose you've got to take pension in there. So, you know, it was a big one. And he was almost like, oh, what one's missing? I was like, civil service. And you could just see the person on the stands. Yes. Thank you. So, Robert Cochran and his most successful LinkedIn post I've ever heard of anyone ever posted. posting. I think now 120,000 impressions, which was him accessing the dashboard and posting it on LinkedIn. That's the one where it really screwed up his retirement income, wasn't it? Yeah. And so I think he's commented a link that you can follow to get on the dashboard. So even if he hasn't, you should try and make his 120,000, 240,000, but I should be going on to that post and trying to find that link and do the dashboard that way myself, because I signed up to the trial and like you had nothing afterwards. I imagine they were just being undated, which is, which is, which is fine. But yeah, it was good. I suggest that it's narrowing, and maybe it's true that there's some human behind the scenes going like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. We don't want to fill up a nickname just to see the dashboard on there. Well, but it's all like, I mean, like surely they just, don't they just get, I mean, doesn't it just work? Why don't things work? Why don't things, Darren? Why? I've triggered myself. But you do that can, yeah, well, it's probably a wider question, isn't it? And it's on that bombshell. And why don't things work? Right. Until next week. I think it's a good few days. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. Be an out and about and stuff. Enjoy it. Catching up with people. Well done for the pensions UK for being on a, you know, a really good event. Yes, and thank you for having me. Yeah, you got invited, didn't you? To speak, we did our fringe stuff, and we were, and again, thank you for having us because we were in the conference proper, which was, which was good. And looking forward to it, you know, to the next ones. Yeah. We've got Emily Boxel on next week. She's going to be joining. She, she couldn't make it last week. But she's been booked up to come and talk about two minutes, which is a bit of financial education and stuff. So we, we won't be talking about, you know, risk-adjusted returns and type of stuff, hopefully, hopefully, we're going to be more endowers comfort zone. Okay. Anyway, Nico, always a pleasure to chat. Yes, I will speak to you next week. And until next time, it's goodbye for me. And it's goodbye for me.