WRITTEN ON August 23rd, 2006 BY Paul Smith AND STORED IN Uncategorized

The reform of the UK pension system is a major policy issue for the DWP . It promises to be the mother of all government IT projects as whatever the system is it will have to meet the needs of the DWP, the needs of financial institutions and pretty much the entire “UK” population. [I've used quotes because there are ramifications for migrant workers too.]

It’s good to see such a complex subject extremely well covered in the White Paper and, hurrah, there’s even a blog-like Pensions Reform Blog. It strikes me that here is a unique opportunity for government to think clearly about the citizen and not get bogged down in designing a new system based on complex financial institutions processes.

Simon Dickson pretty much sums up the WIBBI

A subject like pensions needs to address me at the ultra-personal level. It needs to be about estimates and calculators, telling me exactly how much I’m going to be living on when I’m 65 (or whatever), or how much I need to be putting away now to fund the lifestyle I think I deserve later on. Ideally, without me having to fill in a tax return-style questionnaire.

And I hate to say it… but if you can’t encapsulate all that in a simple one-screen web form which I can fill in within a minute, from memory alone, then the system itself is too complicated.