The UK pension system requires systemic change and a long-term, cross-party consensus to deliver lasting reform on adequacy, Standard Life Master Trust chair, Helen Dean, has argued.

Speaking at the Pensions UK Annual Conference in Manchester, Dean said the focus must shift to the pension system as a whole, with political parties uniting on a shared vision for the future of retirement saving.

“We need systemic change - we need to think about the whole system, and that's going to need consensus. We need all parties to buy into a change that will last,” she said.

Dean warned against short-term reforms that risk creating constant upheaval within the pensions landscape, stressing that consistency and stability were essential if long-term confidence in the system was to be maintained.

“There’s no point in changing pension systems to see them change again in three years’ time,” she explained.

However, she stressed that political agreement alone would not be enough to deliver the change required.

“It’s not just about what the government does. It’s about what the industry does, what employers do, and what individuals do. It’s a four-way partnership,” she said.

Now Pensions chair of trustees, Joanne Segars, agreed with Dean’s comments and said that she would also include social partners, including unions and employers, in that wider effort to build a consensus that has “absolutely got to last”.

Segars said it is “really important” to remember that, when thinking about these issues and what systemic changes are needed, pensions can’t be used to solve every problem in society.

She warned that this happens “far too often” and risks shifting attention away from the core challenges.

“We need to focus on actually fixing the pensions problem, where the main issue is about adequacy or under saving,” she argued.  

“We need to focus on where we can make the most difference, and I’d be kind of worried if we get side tracked with concerns about over saving, for example.”

Segars said part of the success of future reform would depend on keeping solutions simple, suggesting that previous attempts had failed when reforms became overcomplicated.

“That’s the real prize that we've got in front of us – focusing on the things that matter, focusing on getting the contributions up and focusing on how we can bring those people who are excluded from the auto-enrolment club into that auto-enrolment club,” she said.

However, Segars acknowledged that achieving these ambitions would not be easy and suggested that the revived Pensions Commission, tasked by the government with addressing adequacy issues, faces “big barriers” that the first Pensions Commission did not encounter.

As for some of the reasoning behind this, she explained that the social, political, and economic environment today is much less benign than it was when the original commission was operating, creating additional challenges for reform.

Despite those challenges, Segars said that action could no longer be delayed.

“We cannot put these issues off forever. Once we've got that direction of travel, we need to have a roadmap for implementing it, rather than hanging around forever,” she concluded.

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