Pension Wise, the Government’s free guidance service, has moved to the Department for Work and Pensions.
I’m excited to welcome this important service to its new home and look forward to working with the Pension Wise team to fulfil my ambition of helping to make pensions clearer for people.
What is Pension Wise?
For those of you who haven’t heard of Pension Wise, the service was set up one year ago. It helps people aged 50 and over to understand which choices are available to them when it comes to their personal, stakeholder or other Defined Contribution pensions, following the Government’s pension freedom reforms. The service offers free guidance to help you make your own decisions, so it won’t tell you what to do with your money, but it will help you make sense of the new pension landscape.
You can use the Pension Wise service online at pensionwise.gov.uk, or you can book a free telephone or face to face appointment anywhere in the UK. A free telephone appointment is also available to those of you reading this from abroad.
The Pension Wise appointments last 45 minutes during which the friendly guidance specialist will explain your pension options. The session will also help you understand the tax implications of any decision you might consider taking, discuss which options might be most suitable for you and give you tips on what you can do next in easy–to-understand language.
After your appointment, you’ll get a letter with a useful summary of what you talked about to help you plan any next steps. One of the points it will cover is the option to wait before taking any money out of your pension fund and save even more for your future, especially if you’re still working or have other pensions too.
My ambitions for Pension Wise
The Pension Wise website has already had over 2.2 million visits and over 54,000 Pension Wise appointments have taken place. There is a real need for the service it offers.
Pension Wise puts people at the heart of everything it does and I am keen for this to continue. It has already used customer feedback to introduce online calculators, so you can get an idea of how the new changes to pension rules affect you based on your personal circumstances.
We are now planning to restructure how we offer pensions guidance to the public for the future. We will be bringing together Pension Wise and the Pensions Advisory Service, as well as the pension guidance elements of the Money Advice Service, under a new pensions guidance body. This will aim to make sure that consumers can get all their pensions questions answered in one place.
The new system will start from around 2018. But until then, it’s business as usual for Pension Wise. I’m excited to see the continuing work to provide more personalised support and tailored guidance.
In addition, the service is looking to provide repeat appointments so that extra support is available to you should your circumstances change as so often happens in life.
I recognise that everyone is different. Some of you may already have a clear idea of your options and know what you want to do with your money – others may not. These changes should make Pension Wise even more helpful, no matter where you are in your financial planning for the future.
Find out more
To find out more about your pension options, why not visit the Pension Wise website at pensionwise.gov.uk or book an appointment with one of Pension Wise’s friendly guiders on 0800 138 3944? If you’re calling from abroad phone +44 20 3733 3495 to book a free telephone guidance session. Lines are open between 8am and 10pm every day.