The Shifting Ground of Pension Design: Reflections on Risks and Reporting

Workplace Pensions in Flux, Rules Need Reform

• As workplace pensions evolve, rules and regulatory law should adjust to reflect the realities of the 21st century pension landscape.
• Bob Baldwin, a pension industry veteran, offers his personal reflections on the unhelpful hyperbole surrounding defined-benefit and defined-contribution plans and explores the way forward for workplace pension design.
• Baldwin calls on plan governors to adopt measures to help reconcile the unpredictability of contributions and benefits and make defined-benefit plans more transparent. Regulatory and tax policy should also be adapted to facilitate more flexibility in plan designs and prevent current rules from becoming obsolete.