Pension Guidance Service

Monday 12th January 2015 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

At Budget 2014, the Government announced a fundamental change to how people can access their pension savings. From April 2015, everyone with defined contribution pension savings, who is aged 55 and over, will be entitled to access their defined contribution pension savings as they wish, subject to their marginal rate of income tax.

In order to help consumers make confident and informed decisions on how they use their pension savings, everyone approaching such a decision will be entitled to free, fair and impartial guidance.

In response to the “Freedom and Choice in Pensions” consultation on the changes, a team was established within HM Treasury to lead the creation of this guidance service. The Government also committed to publish a progress update on the service design and implementation strategy.

The progress update, “Delivering Pensions Guidance: January 2015 Update”, is available on the gov.uk website at:

http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/delivering-pensions-guidance-january-2015-update.

It includes:

an announcement of the brand name and logo of the new guidance service;

details of how interested potential users can register their interest in early access to the

service and be part of piloting activities;

an explanation of the service design, and how this will be delivered; and

the estimated cost of the service in FY 15/16 of £35 million, to be raised through an FCA levy.

Costs will be confirmed in March 2015.

[HCWS182]