Private sector pension 'collapse'

2 January 2012 Last updated at 19:01 ET

The ACA said a fifth of private sector employers were looking to reduce their pension spend

There has been a "seismic collapse" private sector pensions, and the gap between private and public pensions is widening, a report warns.

The Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) says that nine out of 10 private sector defined benefit schemes are now closed to new entrants.

The ACA wants bold government action to reinvigorate workplace pensions.

Automatic enrolment, set to begin later this year, would enable millions of people to save, the government said.

But Stuart Southall, chairman of the ACA, said that while automatic enrolment should widen private sector pension coverage, "the fact that recently the government had to delay its introduction for smaller employers, because of the deteriorating economic climate, is discouraging".

Defined benefit schemes give members a guaranteed pension, based either on their final salary or their average pay over the length of their career, depending on the scheme.

There are some 23 million workers in the private sector in the UK, and six million in the public sector.

The ACA said that while more than five million public sector employees enjoyed "open" defined benefit pension schemes, fewer than two million workers in the private sector were now in largely "closed" schemes.

Incentives needed

The ACA, whose members advise pension schemes, surveyed 468 employers who run 560 pension schemes.

As well as those private sector defined benefit schemes closed to new entrants, it found that four out of 10 are closed to future accrual.

It said that just over a quarter of employers had budgeted for the cost of workplace pension auto-enrolment, which is being phased in from October, while a fifth of employers were looking to decrease their pension spend.

Stuart Southall said an easing in regulatory controls and new incentives were needed to encourage employers and employees to boost pension savings.

"The government needs to be bold in helping private sector employers so they can consider new ways to boost pension savings over the mid to longer-term so public sector pensions are not 'far better'," he said.

"A more level playing field between private and public sector pension provision is clearly a sensible aim but it is possible that the current government's attempts to achieve this have already been undermined by the seismic collapse of private sector pensions and, in both sectors, it seems probable that the later the cure the stronger will have to be the medicine."

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "Automatic enrolment is the most radical action taken by any government to help address the question of saving for retirement.

"It will enable millions of people to save, many for the first time.

"We will continue to work with industry as we bring this forward as it is in everyone's interest to help people save for their retirement."

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On private call, Republicans say attacking Obama personally is too dangerous: Yahoo News exclusive

Obama greets a crowd at Wilkes Barre/Scranton International Airport (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Republicans on a private Republican National Committee conference call with allies warned Tuesday that party surrogates should refrain from personal attacks against President Barack Obama, because such a strategy is too hazardous for the GOP.

"We're hesitant to jump on board with heavy attacks" personally against President Obama, Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of polling firm the Tarrance Group, said on the call. "There's a lot of people who feel sorry for him."

Recent polling data indicates that while the president suffers from significantly low job approval ratings, voters still give "high approval" to Obama personally, Thompson said.

Voters "don't think he's an evil man who's out to change the United States" for the worse--even though many of the same survey respondents agree that his policies have harmed the country, Thompson said. The upshot, Thompson stressed, is that Republicans should "exercise some caution" when talking about the president personally.

On the call--which Yahoo News was invited to attend because of a mistake by someone on the staff of the Republican National Committee--Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for George W. Bush, encouraged Republicans to turn around Democratic attacks lobbed at the GOP presidential candidates (Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, for starters) for "flip-flopping."

"I don't like playing defense," Fleischer said. He suggested the listeners to Tuesday's call label the president as a flip-flopper on the following issues: opposing tax increases for those making under $250,000, opposing the Bush tax cuts, opposing raising the debt limit, and opposing a health care mandate.

"When it comes to flip flopping, Barack Obama is the king of flip flopping," Fleischer said. "You can offer that to anybody," he suggested.

Thompson noted that Obama may be boxed in by similarly strong personal approval numbers for Republican lawmakers as he ponders attacking the GOP House majority during the 2012 campaign.

"Obama running against Congress is not going to work," Thompson said.

In a poll conducted in early November by the Tarrance Group and the Democratic group Lake Research for Politico and George Washington University, voters gave their personal member of Congress a 46 percent approval rating--even higher than the 44 percent personal approval numbers for Obama in the survey, Thompson said. (The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.)

Fifty-eight percent of the voters surveyed disapproved of how Obama is handling relations with Congress, according to Tarrance's November poll.

"It's a tough road for him when you look at those numbers," Thompson said of the president.

Thompson said that his group's research suggests that voters are giving Obama higher approval on foreign policy than on the issue of jobs and the economy.

Voters aren't simply looking at the president as the symbol for a "broken Washington," Thompson said.

Update 3:40 p.m.: Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer followed up with Yahoo News to say the story "misses the point" and that Tuesday's call wasn't about ways to avoid attacking the president, it was about sharing the best strategies for attacks. "It makes more sense to focus on his failed policies than on personal attacks," Spicer told Yahoo News of their data regarding the president.

Ari Fleischer also emailed Yahoo News to share his complete list of Obama flip-flops, which, in addition to the points above, includes: promising to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term; vowing to lower unemployment below 8 percent following the stimulus; falling short on shovel-ready jobs; contradicting himself on constitutional rights-- condemning Bush but then supporting "warrantless wiretaps, indefinite detentions, secret renditions and kept [Guantanamo] open; giving lobbyists waivers to work at the White House after saying they wouldn't work there; and refusing public financing in 2008 after vowing to accept it.

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Continue Reading... Labels: attacking, call, dangerous:, exclusive, Obama, personally, Private, Republicans, Yahoo

Private firms 'to share NHS data'

4 December 2011 Last updated at 06:10 ET

 

Patient Concern says the aims of the scheme to share NHS records are "laudable"

Healthcare companies could be given access to anonymous NHS patient records and other NHS data under new plans.

On Monday, Prime Minister David Cameron is due to unveil the plans intended to help the UK life sciences sector become a world leader, and give patients faster access to new treatments.

Campaign group Patient Concern fears the "death of patient confidentiality".

The government promised "all necessary safeguards". It is unclear whether the plan covers all or part of the UK.

The prime minister, due to make a keynote speech on the plans in London on Monday, is expected to give life science companies more freedom to run clinical trials inside hospitals.

The government says that the cradle-to-grave principle of the NHS means it has some of the most detailed and comprehensive patient data in the world.

'Vital importance'

Ministers believe Britain can become a world leader in the field of life sciences because of the vast expertise within the NHS and its strong university-based research.

The industry already employs 160,000 people in 4,500 companies, with a turnover of £50bn a year.

Under the plans, NHS records would be made anonymous, but it is not clear whether private firms would have to pay to access them.

A government spokesman said: "The life sciences industry is of vital importance to the UK economy and we are committed to greater collaboration with the NHS to ensure that patients can get faster access to valuable innovative treatments.

"All necessary safeguards would be in place to ensure protection of patients' details - the data will be anonymised and the process will be carefully and robustly regulated.

"Healthcare charities, researchers and clinicians are calling for this action in order to improve research, innovation and the development of medicines in the UK."

Mr Cameron will outline plans for an "early access" scheme allowing seriously-ill patients, such as those with cancer, to get new drugs up to a year before they are fully licensed.

Some medicines can take up to 20 years to be approved.

But the proposals have been criticised by privacy campaigners who oppose wider access to medical records.

'Desperation'

Roger Goss, from Patient Concern, told the BBC: "This is the death of patient confidentiality.

"There is no guarantee that information will be anonymised, in any case anonymised data can just as easily be re-identified.

"We understand GP surgeries will have the right to refuse to release their patients' records, but whether patients will ever be told what is happening, let alone have the choice to protect their privacy, is still unclear."

Patient Concern resigned from a Department of Health consultation committee looking at the plan because it was felt the organisation had been "recruited to applaud rather than advise", Mr Goss said.

But he added that the aims of the scheme were "laudable", and his organisation would approve if it was confirmed patients would get a choice whether to participate.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said he did not object in principle to a closer partnership between the NHS and the life sciences sector as this "could be good for both sides".

But he told Sky News it was "absolutely essential" patient data was safeguarded and this could not be treated as "red tape to be brushed away".

"Proper regulation and essential safeguards need to be in place when it comes to patients data," he said. "It cannot be done in a way where essential rules are threatened."

Meanwhile, other government-held data - such as the Met Office's weather records - could also be opened up under the plans.

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