Government outlines new plan for pensions pots

Pension pots worth less than £10,000 will automatically move with workers when they change jobs, under Government plans.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates that people will hold around 11 jobs over their working lives and by 2050 this could result in around 50 million pension pots lying dormant.

Pensions Minister Steve Webb wants to see people build up one "big fat pot" when they retire to buy them a better pension than they would with lots of smaller pots.

The introduction of automatic transfers in the forthcoming Pensions Bill is projected to reduce the proportion of people reaching retirement with five or more dormant pots from one quarter to one in 30.

However, pensions bodies raised concerns that the move could mean people see their pension "shunted" from a good scheme into a poor one.

Darren Philp, policy director, National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), said: "This approach could put workers' savings at risk.

"We are concerned that a worker's pension could be automatically shunted from an excellent pension into a bad one with high charges.

"A better solution would be to automatically transfer these small pension pots into a small number of large-scale, low-cost pension schemes. This would also remove the bureaucracy and expense that pension schemes will face when trying to ensure that a pot follows a worker automatically."

Last October, the NAPF warned that a "pot follows member" approach could erode a person's pension savings by up to 25%.

The proposals are part of the Government's landmark programme to automatically place people into workplace pensions and encourage people to put more money aside for their later years.

Automatic enrolment means that by 2018 all employers will need to offer a workplace pension but concerns have been raised that the increase in pension savers will also create more dormant small pension pots.

Minister for Pensions Steve Webb said: "Instead of having lots of small pension pots all over the place, we want people to have a 'big fat pot' which will buy them a better pension.