06 August 2007
One of the biggest names in investment management, Fidelity
International, will call on Gordon Brown for an urgent change in
law to save what is left of our final salary pension scheme
system.
Fidelity warns that recent legislation aimed at protecting
workers' final salary pensions has gone too far and has actually
resulted in ending such schemes altogether.
Fidelity's Martin Harris commented that there are now just two
types of works pensions - those which provide very generous
benefits which are closed to new entrants because of cost and those
where the company make a contribution, but where the investment
risk is carried wholly by the worker.
Fidelity propose a later retirement age for workers but less
stringent terms for companies, allowing them more investment and
administrative freedom and dropping add-on benefits such as those
relating to death in service, or letting employers offer benefits
that do not necessarily increase in line with inflation.
