Good-bye Ros

I wasn’t a fan of the Ros Altmann appointment as Pension Minister and am not unhappy to see her go. She has been a good champion of pension’s miss-selling and other inadequacies in our present system, but she has also been a champion of her own profile. A bit of self-promotion is okay so long as you get the right things done. But in her time as Pension Minister, frankly, she didn’t.

She appeared to put on hold Steve Webb’s Defined Ambition agenda but didn’t push through anything else in its place. She was caught out, seemingly, by Treasury initiatives around lifetime ISAs, and her most publicised comments during her tenure were not on the subject of pensions but her critical observations relating to her then-boss Iain Duncan-Smith.

As she continues to speak for pensions from her seat in the House of Lords, it is likely to be as a populist voice for change, but without the detailed knowledge of how to do it- something else that exposed her during her time as minister.

And I expect we will see a return to the OTT headlines in the Daily Express with Ros Altmann quoted as the expert. I suspect that many of these headlines in the past were her own creations and necessarily lessened whilst she was Pension Minister.

The more junior appointments that follow her tenure suggest a greater hold of pension policy at the Treasury as well as reflecting a perceived government view that pensions doesn’t need high profile ministers.

Achieving

Bill Gates said ‘I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.’

That’s what happened this week on Mallowstreet. It started with a post from John Reeve, bemoaning the latest negative pension headlines in the Daily Mail. The online discussion then began to involve others, including the person that had fed the headline to the Daily Mail, Ros Altmann.

And yesterday, the discussion went live. A live streamed debate, an additional tool ‘that enhances communication’, with John and Ros among the guests.

Some great comments too. Weaknesses in the pension system rightly identified. An acceptance by Ros (I think) that although she may be right with her comments, she may need to be more careful with what she feeds to the papers.

And a decision to take it further into some kind of live debate.

There is power in clear communication. When we communicate well, it brings understanding and takes the debate forward. And maybe, just maybe, it will lead to action and an achieving of ‘the kind of freedoms we are interested in’.

Well done Mallowstreet.