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The Pensions
Advisory Service (TPAS) is calling on the Government to improve
communication of the state pension scheme following the release
of a report on its Women’s Pensions Helpline.
The helpline, which was unveiled in February and originally intended
as a short-term service, saw such demand that it is to be kept open
on a permanent basis.
Statistics from the report show that the main issue concerning callers
was the state scheme, with 57 per cent of all calls, and it concludes
that there is a need for much improved communication of this pension
scheme. TPAS surveyed 1,307 women callers to the helpline, which
produced evidence of the problems involved. TPAS found a lack of
knowledge and understanding in this area, both in relation to present
arrangements and the changes to women’s state pension ages
and the pension qualifying conditions starting in 2010. Only six
per cent were aware of these changes.
TPAS chief executive, Malcolm McLean, commented: “Our experience
in running this helpline has confirmed many of the things we already
knew or at least suspected about women’s pensions.”
McLean cited women’s lifestyle and “other factors”
as the reason for women’s pensions being “much more
complicated than those for men”.
95 per cent of all callers to the helpline were over 45 years of
age, which according to TPAS indicates the ‘total lack of
interest that younger women have in pensions’. Only two per
cent believed they had sufficient information on the state pension
scheme, and only four per cent of callers knew where to go to get
more information about their state pension.
- Pensions Age
August 2008
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