Our children will suffer in axeing of cash lessons

By Toby WalneLast updated at 11:05 PM on 31st July 2010

The charity in charge of personal finance lessons for schools fears that children may suffer cash problems as adults because of the shelving of a new syllabus.
Plans to include personal finance in the curriculum from September 2011 have been put on ice following the change of government.
Under plans devised by Labour, pupils aged between five and 16 were to have been taught about handling money, savings and financial skills as part of a new compulsory education pack.

Funny money: Games teach pupils the value of objects

But the move has been dropped. It means that despite the Government spending £20 million a year on financial education there is still no unified approach to teaching money matters in schools.
The Personal Finance Education Group charity provides the industry quality mark for teaching. Chief executive Wendy van den Hende says: ‘This is a new Government with lots of new priorities and unfortunately this vital area had yet to be addressed - the planned lessons are on hold.
 

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Workers feel more confidence in their pensions

Published: 8:36AM BST 14 Oct 2009

Around 11pc more employees currently feel confident about saving for their
retirement through a pension than those who are not happy doing so, up from
a balance of 7pc in March and just 1pc at the end of last year.

Nearly two out of five people also think pensions are the best vehicle for
retirement saving, beating property and tax-free Isas, according to the
National Association of Pension Funds.

The research, released on the first day of the group’s annual conference, also
found 84pc of people planned to continue to save into a workplace pension
during the coming year, while 7pc will increase their contributions.

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Pensions ‘quality mark’ unveiled

A scheme aimed at rebuilding confidence in workplace pensions and making them understandable and attractive to employees is being unveiled.The Pension Quality Mark will be awarded to employers meeting a list of criteria, including having a minimum 6% employer contribution rate. Marks & Spencer and Standard Life will be among the first recipients later. The scheme is being run by the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), which represents 1,200 UK funds. The scheme comes amid a tough climate for pensions with a number of companies having closed final-salary schemes in recent times. SignalEmployers have closed most final-salary schemes to new joiners and replaced them with money purchase or defined contribution versions. In these, the eventual pension depends directly on the amount of cash built up through investment, with no direct relationship to the number of years for which members have been contributing or their final salary at retirement. The Pension Quality Mark is designed to create a benchmark for good quality defined-contribution schemes offered by employers. To qualify the pension scheme must: Have contributions of at least 10% of a salary in the pension saving scheme, with an employer contribution of at least 6% Prove that the scheme is being run in the best interests of members, with administration and fund management charges limited to 1% of the main funds Ensure communication to members is clear, engaging and easy to understand There is a one-off assessment fee of £250 and a £250 annual licence fee (£500 annual fee for larger schemes) The first awards are being made on Monday with Marks & Spencer, Kellogg’s, Accenture, BG Group, IBM, Standard Life, and The Royal College of Physicians all recipients. This list includes businesses that are planning to close final-salary schemes to new and existing members. But Joanne Segars, chief executive of the NAPF, said that the not-for-profit award was not created because final-salary schemes were closing, but to applaud employers for high-calibre schemes and allow employees to “navigate through the pension maze”. “It shows these employers’ commitment to encouraging their staff to save for retirement, which is becoming ever more vital,” she said. She hopes that 100 schemes will receive the quality mark in the next year. Doug Taylor, from the consumers’ association Which?, said that providing a benchmark could help people “judge the quality of the pension scheme offered”. “Companies will be able to easily promote that aspect of their employment package,” he added. InvestmentEstimates by Aon Consulting suggest the average retirement income from a defined-contribution scheme for a 60-year-old in the UK is now £12,021 a year, or £231 a week. This is 52% lower than the average in annual UK wage in 2008.

The management firm described the situation as a “ticking time-bomb” but Mrs Segars said that the vast majority of people with long-term plans were decades away from retirement. Since the trough of the latest downturn, the value of pension funds has risen as share values have recovered. Mrs Segars said that “realism not opportunism” had led employers to have a close look at their pension benefits during the recession, leading some to close their final-salary schemes. Employer contributions are generally lower in defined-contribution schemes than final-salary schemes, but those which qualify for the Pension Quality Mark will be more generous than the minimum required in the Personal Accounts system planned for 2012. The government-backed Personal Accounts project is aimed at employers who do not offer their employees membership of a pension scheme. Workers would automatically be enrolled into the scheme and put in a minimum of about 4% of their salary, with an employer contributing a minimum of 3%, and there is tax relief worth another 1%. The aim is for the take-up of pension savings - especially among younger workers - to increase. However, it could lead to some employers with existing schemes bringing down their contributions to the 3% statutory minimum required with Personal Accounts. The NAPF award is aimed at combating such a move by employers. A higher Pension Quality Mark Plus standard is being given to schemes which have a contribution rate of 15% of earnings, of which a minimum of 10% comes from the employer. The organisation represents 1,200 pension schemes in the UK.

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Present worries

By Kevin Peachey
Consumer affairs reporter, BBC News

The shining Gibson guitar was going for a song on the internet, but any expert could hear it did not play like the real thing.

You might not expect musical instruments to be among the haul of counterfeit or dangerous goods seized by trading standards officers. Read more