David Brooks, Technical Director at Broadstone: Looking back over the pensions career of Guy Opperman will mostly be a frustrating experience. His tenure was compromised by Parliamentary time being hoovered up by Brexit and Covid related issues.
“A case in point is the Pensions Act 2021 which began life as Pensions Bill 2019. While it eventually progressed covering primarily Pensions Dashboards, CDC and the new funding and notifiable events regime for DB schemes - the latter two are still not in force, the pensions dashboard activation is at least 3 years away and CDC is slowly but surely coming to fruition for one scheme.
“Guy had some big issues to get moving to change the UK pensions landscape and his frustration came out towards the end with the glacial progress of a leviathan like industry. ESG, ongoing digitisation and rise in professionalisation will be some of the big ticket items for his successor to take forward.
Tim Middleton, Director of Policy and External Affairs at the Pensions Management Institute: Guy Opperman has been longest-serving Pensions Minister since the post was created. As Minister, he has overseen a number of important regulatory reforms, but his greatest legacy will surely be the Pensions Dashboard. Whilst we have not always agreed with all of his ideas, we have never doubted his energy, determination and enthusiasm for the role and his clear desire to improve pension provision within the United Career. We would like to offer him our very best wishes for the future.
Steve Webb, Partner at LCP, commented: After years of a revolving door for pensions ministers, it has been good to have a period of stability under Guy Opperman. And he has made progress in some key areas, laying the groundwork for CDC schemes to be introduced in the UK, moving us five years nearer to pensions dashboards and getting pension schemes to focus more on how their funds are invested from an ESG perspective. But regrettably there has been no progress in the last five years on the key area on boosting DC savings rates, with the 2017 review still gathering dust. There are also serious questions about whether the new DB funding regime is fit for purpose. The new minister will have much work to do to get these key areas moving again.
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