NAPF calls for giant ‘super trust’ pensions

The new chair of the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has called for a new breed of pensions called super trusts.

Hyde Harrison told the NAPF conference the current defined contribution (DC) pension system is "significantly flawed" and will leave too many people with "measly" pots.

Super trusts are pensions run on a much larger scale, allowing small employers to join pension schemes with thousands of others rather than setting up their own small schemes.

There are 42,000 workplace DC in the UK and the average scheme has just 20 members. Their size makes them costly and poorly governed, Harrison said.

The larger scale pensions would have stronger governance measures than DC schemes currently offer, with high quality trustees ensuring investment performance and charges meet savers' needs, Harrison said.

Harrison said the NAPF will investigate incentivising consolidation in the pensions marketplace, and help contribute to regulatory reform to support super trusts.

"The current system is a mess, and what is really worrying is that over the coming years millions of people will be brought into it," Harrison said.

"We must move from today's significantly flawed structure to a world of large, efficient, well-run and low cost pensions which are run in the interests of savers."

But Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Super trusts may well be part of the solution, though I am not sure how they would fit in with workplace wrap account arrangements or how effective they would be at promoting individual member engagement in retirement income planning."