Some of you may recall a television series (many years before Netflix and Prime) called Grumpy Old Women and its male equivalent Grumpy Old Men.

Its main premise was a series of interviews in which celebrities expressed their frustration with the everyday annoyances of modern life. Whilst intentionally comedic, I could empathise with many of the situations.

The PMI currently chairs the Joint Industry Forum, a group comprising the main industry bodies involved in UK pensions.

As a group, we’ve become increasingly frustrated by the way in which consultations are being conducted.

Throughout 2020 and continuing apace in 2021, there has been a morass of consultations with ever-shorter deadlines to which we all feel obliged to respond.

For many of us who give our time for what we believe to be the common good, reading and responding to consultations is not our day job. It has become laborious, time consuming and, at times, frustrating.

So, a plea to The Pensions Regulator and the Department for Work and Pensions. Help us to help you by:

a) co-ordinating with one another so your respective consultations are more evenly spread out across the year and,

b) giving us reasonable and realistic time periods in which to respond.

Only in that way can we work effectively together and give ourselves a fighting chance of creating practical, workable pensions regulation. And I can stop being quite so grumpy

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