How easy is it to plan for your retirement?

Empowering consumers is the best way to ensure that any industry is fair, transparent and sustainable. That’s why I believe that you are best placed to make decisions about your future.

As Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, my job is to make sure the right information is out there to support this. After all, no-one has a better insight into what you need for your future than you.

Planning for the future

Ensuring that people have access to high-quality and impartial guidance on retirement options is central to creating a pension industry that works for everyone.

Pension freedoms, introduced almost three years ago, were a crucial reform that gave people access to their hard earned savings and the ability to do what they saw fit with them.

Since then, a number of services have been set up to offer people free financial guidance, including outlining retirement options.

Many of you will make use of Which?’s pensions content and Money Helpline, but there’s also the government-backed services from Pension Wise, the Money Advice Service, The Pensions Advisory Service all offer crucial guidance to millions of people.

While I would urge anyone who is looking for advice on saving for the future or planning for retirement to use these services, I think we can do more.

Single Financial Guidance Body

I am working to make accessing these services easier and the creation of the new Single Financial Guidance Body will make accessing high quality, impartial information on your pension, finances and debt simpler.

This new body will bring together the functions of existing providers under one roof and offer support to people and every stage of their lives.

This is especially important as more than 9.4 million people are now saving into a workplace pension through automatic enrolment.

It’s crucial that this major reform goes hand in hand with access to the financial guidance that you need to build a more secure financial future – ensuring that the right help is out there for this new generation of savers.

Retirement plans

The more information you have the more control you have over your future. If you are approaching retirement, here are my three tips to help you with your financial plans:

1.Check for any lost savings: Check if you have any missing pension savings and documentation through the government’s Pensions Tracing Service
2.Find out how much State Pension you’re likely to get, and when
3.Contact Pension Wise to get guidance on your pension options -this is the government’s free and impartial guidance service.

This is a guest contribution by Guy Opperman MP, Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion. All views expressed here are Guy’s own and not necessarily also shared by Which?.

Where do you go for information and help with your pension savings? Do you have a financial plan in place for your retirement? How easy did you find it to plan for your retirement?

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