The consultation on the future shape of workplace pensions has been going on for nearly a month now and ends two weeks on Friday. It is littered with errors, from completely repeated questions (Q52 = Q54) to ones which are so similar as makes no difference (Qs 41 and 44 for example) and the thrust of a lot of the questions are quite hard to answer if you do not share some of the underlying assumptions of the DWP about the process, but come on! This is our chance to put a bit of definition into the rather blurry outline of a straw man which some of the newspapers have been tilting at so vigorously!
You don’t have to answer all of the questions, but just to goad you a bit I have done so here. Agree, disagree, I would love to hear from you. But not until you have responded to one of the following addresses:
How to respond to this consultation
Pleasesendyourconsultationresponses,preferablybye-mail,to:definedambition.pensionsconsultation@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Or by post to:
Defined Ambition Team
Private Pensions Policy and Analysis
1st Floor, Caxton House
6-12 Tothill Street
London
SW1H 9NA
Feedback on the consultation process
There have only been 24 posts on the blog. I think the main reason for this was identified early in the process from a contributor referring to herself only as Hannah:
Thanks for this Hannah, we will look into this once the blog picks up pace.
DA Team, DWP
Of course the blog never did pick up pace because people soon realised that there comments would be lost in a stream of pension benefit queries. Not the way to encourage a consultation. If you want to comment on this or anything else about the process of the consultation, the contact details are as follows:
Elias Koufou
DWP Consultation Coordinator
2nd Floor
Caxton House
Tothill Street
London
SW1H 9NA
Phone: 020 7449 7439
Email:elias.koufou@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
I applaud the use of an open blog but it’s obvious that there’s a bit of a problem here! Perhaps, to avoid this becoming sidetracked, you could introduce a drop-down in the comment section so that people could select what aspect of DA reform or the consultation their comment relates to – and if their comment relates instead to concerns about their accrued benefits, you could redirect them to a separate specialised member queries page?