About the Conference

The half day conference on 8th February 2012 was well attended, with 35 people from all over the country coming together to discuss pension provision and trade unioin responses to further cuts. The afternoon was opened by Mary Bousted, General Secretary of ATL who spoke briefly about ATL's position on their recently negotiated settlement, before going on to highlight some of the wider issues affecting pensions, particularly private sector pensions. Mary spoke about younger people opting out, hidden fees, annuity rates and government subsdiy to private pensions, and referenced a pamphlet by Richard Murphy called Making Pensions Work.

Victoria Phillips, of Thompsons Solicitors spoke about changes to the default retirment age and the recent introduction of age discrimination legislation. She gave some useful examples from recent case law of the anomalies in the way legislation has been interpreted.

Bryn Davis, Director of Union Pension Services Ltd, provided an overview of the terms and concepts associated with pensions and spoke about the increasing number of choices and options available, which can actually make decision making more, rather than less, difficult.

The afternoon ended with a talk from Glyn Jenkins, Head of Pensions at UNISON who has been involved in recent high level negotiations on public sector pensions.

Speakers

Mary Bousted, General Secretary, Association of Teachers and Lecturers
Pensions: the campaign for fairness

Victoria Phillips, Thompsons Solicitors
Changes to the retirement age: legal aspects and implications

Glyn Jenkins, UNISON
Public Sector Pensions: gold plated or not?

Bryn Davies, Director of Union Pension Services Ltd
Pension Options

Click here to download the full programme