The Future of Pensions and Bereavement "Injustice"

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Major reforms are needed in workplace pensions to increase the amount people are saving for their retirement, but it will take the next 20 years to get there. That's according to Professor Nick Pearce, one of the people appointed by the Government to its Pensions Commission to look at the problem and find solutions. Government figures show that around 18 million working age adults are not saving into a pension and nearly half of those have a job. Professor Pearce talks to Paul Lewis about what they're looking at to tackle that problem. Three of the UK's leading end-of-life charities have described the way bereaved families are being treated by the Capita-run Civil Service Pension Scheme as an "injustice". Last week the government published data showing more than 1,000 cases where loved ones had been waiting more than 100 days for survivor pensions and death in service payments. Capita has apologised many times already but faces the prospect of losing the contract of running the scheme, worth hundreds of millions of pounds, as the government looks to bring it back in-house. More than a trillion pounds of our savings is sitting in accounts that pay little or even no interest, when it could easily be earning 4% or more elsewhere. Those figures come from the Bank of England analysed by the investment platform Lightyear. They show £1.2 trillion is sitting in UK bank and building society accounts and a quarter of that amount is earning no interest at all. Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporters: Dan Whitworth and Jo Krasner Researcher: Amber Mehmood Editor: Jess Quayle Senior News Editor: Sara Wadeson (First broadcast 12pm Saturday 19th September 2026)