Occupational Pension Schemes Research Articles

Occupational Pension Scheme Membership and Retirement Saving

Journal Article Occupational Pension Scheme Membership and Retirement Saving Get access Richard Hemming, Richard Hemming Institute for Fiscal Studies Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Russell Harvey Russell Harvey Institute for Fiscal Studies Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 93, Issue 369, 1 March 1983, Pages 128–144, https://doi.org/10.2307/2232169 Published: 01 March 1983

Institutionally acceptable leases

The past 15 years have seen a substantial increase in the number of institutions established for the purpose of long‐term investment, and in the size of the aggregate funds available for that purpose. The new investing institutions are mainly pension funds and life offices, and their rise has been due to the introduction and growth of new occupational pension schemes. The same period has seen a marked change in investment policy on the part of almost all investing institutions, so as to give increasing prominence to investment in real property alongside the traditional areas of investment in government securities and in the equity markets. This policy change has been influenced by the concomitant growth of inflation, and the belief that real property offers the best protection against its damaging effects.

Project Labour Movement and the Welfare State: Work in Progress

In August 1982 we started out on a comparative research project entitled 'Labour Movement and the Welfare State labour movements, occupational safety regulations, unemployment insurance and pension schemes in four West European countries since 1945'. The project is being carried out at the Sociological Institute of the University of Copenhagen, and is being partly financed by the Danish Social Science Research Council for a period of two years. The theme is the study of the reciprocal relations between distinct characteristics of various national labour movements and different national routes of development in shaping three areas of welfare policies crucial to wage labour: occupational safety, unemployment insurance, and pension benefits. The project can be specified by the following themes:

Occupational pension schemes and British capitalism

Occupational pension schemes and British capitalism

The Financing of Private Occupational Pension Schemes.

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Contracting Out of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme

The first review of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme is currently in progress. We have argued elsewhere (Hemming and Kay, 1981b) that the review should involve a fundamental reappraisal of the structure of the scheme. In this paper we concentrate on a single issue, but one which is necessarily central, and one where change is certain to occur; the terms on which private occupational pension schemes may contract out of the state scheme. The Government Actuary has already proposed modifications to these terms which would be effective from April 1983. (DHSS, 1981).

The Effect of Occupational Pension Schemes on Saving in the United Kingdom: A Test of the Life Cycle Hypothesis

The Effect of Occupational Pension Schemes on Saving in the United Kingdom: A Test of the Life Cycle Hypothesis

Transfer Value Payments Between Occupational Pension Schemes.

It is now 20 years since a Joint Working Party of the Institute and Faculty, comprising Messrs Spratling, Bacon and Bromfield, presented a paper (J.I.A.83, Part III) on the results of its investigation into the actuarial and other problems arising in connexion with the transferability of pension rights.That paper and the discussions on it at the Faculty and Institute were concerned mainly with the general principle involved in maintaining or ‘preserving’ the rights of individual members of occupational pension schemes who changed employment. This could be achieved either:(i) through the scheme of the employer the member was leaving by providing what they called ‘cold storage benefits’ (and which we refer to in this paper as preserved benefits) or(ii) through the scheme of the employer which he was joining by means of a transfer value payment to that scheme from the former scheme.

Assessmentism—an alternative to pensions funding?

1.1. Occupational pension schemes in Great Britain and in many other countries are experiencing a very difficult period. For several years now actuaries valuing funded pension schemes have been faced all too often with the unenviable task of presenting to their clients the unpopular message that their pension schemes are going to cost more in the future than they did in the past. Furthermore, the increasing pressure to revalue pensions in course of payment and to replace withdrawal benefits by some form of preserved rights is either threatening employers with intolerable funding burdens, or is causing some departure from the established practice of fully funding retirement benefits.

The Developing Relationship Between the State Pension Scheme and Occupational Pension Schemes

The Developing Relationship Between the State Pension Scheme and Occupational Pension Schemes

When Insurance is the best policy

THE MAIN principle of the Social Security Pensions Bill, just published, is that the State pension will consist of two parts, a basic component which will represent pension on a £ for £ basis up to a lower earnings level, and an additional component which, when the scheme matures after 20 years, will provide 25% of earnings in excess of the lower level, up to a maximum of seven times the lower level. An employer who has an occupational pension scheme satisfying various conditions as to benefits provided may contract out of the additional component in the State scheme, and if he does so, his own and his employees' contributions to the State scheme will be reduced.

The Interaction Between State and Occupational Pension Schemes in the United Kingdom

SynopsisThe paper discusses the implications of the Social Security Pensions Act 1975 and associated Regulations for occupational pension scheme design and finance. Firstly, a general preface deals with currently topical matters. Secondly, integration of State and Occupational Schemes as practised up to the present time is described. Next, integration in future, whether contracted in or contracted out, is considered from the scheme design point of view, and some problems are mentioned. Finally, the financial background to the contracting-out conditions is described and some evaluation made of the terms available.

Security in retirement

The first of these articles dealt with the development of the State and Occupational Pension Schemes from their early beginnings up to the present time. Changes in public opinion taking place from time to time up and down the country have necessitated a periodic review and enhancement of pension provisions, such updating appearing to occur with increasing frequency. Teachers' pensions are the subject of an official Working Party on Teachers' Superannuation which has been in operation for a number of years, and is representative of Central and Local Government and the teachers' organisations.

Reflections on the Roles of State and Occupational Pension Schemes in the United Kingdom

SynopsisThe paper considers the role which the State should play in the provision of pensions to the retired population. The role of occupational schemes is also considered with particular reference to the restrictions placed on that role by the authorities through the requirements for approval for tax purposes and the cost and level of State pensions. The main features of various State pension schemes which have been proposed in successive White Papers are discussed together with their shortcomings and advantages. The White Paper “Better Pensions” and its implications for the pensions industry are then considered in greater detail.

Recent Changes in the Tax treatment of Occupational Pension Schemes

In February of this year (1970) the Inland Revenue published a memorandum giving details of changes they propose to make in the tax treatment of occupational pension schemes. Although these proposals in certam instances were dependent on the existence of the previous Government's National Superannuation Scheme, the Finance Act, 1970, in which the legislation to introduce the changes was incorporated, contains no reference to this Scheme. In the Finance Act, the conditions for automatic Inland Revenue approval are more severe than those announced in the February memorandum The Act does, however, give the Inland Revenue wide discretion to relax these stringent conditions. The Inland Revenue have indicated that they will use these powers of discretion to implement all the proposals in their February memorandum ignoring any reference to the now defunct National Superannuation Scheme.This paper has been based on the Finance Act, 1970 and the Inland Revenue memorandum. However, these documents do not clarify all the points involved and, until the Inland Revenue issue their practice notes, as they intend to shortly, we cannot be certain how the changes will apply in all cases.

Social Security and Occupational Pension Schemes

Since the idea of a wage-related national pension scheme was first launched in tangible form by the publication in 1957 of the Labour Party's ‘National Superannuation’ plan there has been a state of uneasy coexistence between national and occupational pension schemes in the United Kingdom. Social security systems providing not merely basic flat-rate benefits, but also benefits related to earnings, had been in existence for some years in other European countries, but it was not until the National Insurance Act, 1959 took effect in April 1961 that a national graduated pension scheme became a reality in the United Kingdom. Established at a modest level and designed primarily as a means of raising revenue to meet the rising outgo on flat-rate benefits, this graduated scheme has never seemed likely to endure in its original form. Nevertheless the National Insurance Act, 1966 has grafted on to it a scheme to provide short-term graduated sickness, unemployment and widows' benefits.

Social Security and Occupational Pension Schemes

SynopsisSocial security in the United Kingdom is at a crossroads. Should it become more selective, and if so, what form should the selectivity take ? Should the traditional methods of finance be changed ? What is to be done about the pockets of poverty which still exist ?Occupational pension schemes, too, are coming increasingly under public scrutiny. Are they fulfilling their role adequately ? In what ways do they need to be improved ?The Government is expected to announce next year its proposals for a new State pension scheme. These seem likely to include a change in the financing of National Insurance benefits generally. They may contain features which could set the State scheme and occupational schemes on a collision course.The paper examines some of the issues involved and indicates lines along which future developments might take place. It concludes by describing a way in which State and occupational schemes could continue to work in partnership.

Die Entwicklung staatlicher und privater Alters-Versorgungseinrichtungen im Vereinigten Königreich

The historical development of old age pensions in Britain has been along different lines to the development in Germany, and was for many years dominated by the conception that the function of the State, in framing social security schemes should be limited to the provision of flat rate benefits on a subsistence level for the whole population. This therefore left wide scope for the provision of additional retirement benefits under pension schemes set up by employers for their employees, and it has been a matter of policy of successive governments to encourage the development of such schemes. At the present time the funds of such schemes are an important source of capital formation and the first results of an official enquiry into the constitution of pension fund assets have recently been published. Occupational pension schemes have not been subject to any supervision or control by government authorities but in order to take advantage of the income tax concessions available it has been necessary to obtain approval of such schemes by the Inland Revenue authorities whose sole concern has been to prevent undue loss of tax revenue thereby. In order to satisfy these authorities, quite apart from the general desirability of such control, private pension schemes normally operate on the basis of quinquennial actuarial valuations, the Actuary having complete freedom in determining the valuation basis. The introduction of a small graduated element on top of the flat rate pensions under the state social security scheme in 1961 marked a departure from the basic principle previously adopted but where an employer was already making adequate provision for some or all of his employees under an occupational pension scheme he could arrange to exclude them from the graduated element so that they would continue on the flat rate basis. A considerable number of employees have been “contracted out” of the graduated scheme on this basis and in respect of their “contracted out” level of benefits it has been necessary to introduce an element of supervision by the government authorities. Considerable problems would arise for “contracted out” schemes if the graduated scheme were to be substantially extended or if accrued benefits thereunder were liable to be revalued from time to time, for example if linked to an index of priees or wages. An Appendix to the paper sets out details of pensions under the state social security scheme and the income tax and other conditions relating to occupational pension schemes and to benefits and contributions thereunder.

Occupational Pension Schemes; A Survey by the Government Actuary. [Pp. 28. London: H.M.S.O., 1958. 2s.

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