'It’s time to break the cycle of inertia on pensions'

Last year saw an increasing number of high profile companies announce the closure of their final salary or defined benefit pension schemes. There are a number of very real commercial reasons prompting these decisions and they are entirely understandable, but, given the lack of long-term saving provision in the UK, these closures do nothing to make me feel positive. I suspect we will see more announcements that have potentially serious consequences for future pensioners’ wealth and well-being in retirement throughout 2010.

So will the introduction of personal accounts (now rebranded as "Nest") – set to be introduced in 2012 but on a delayed timescale, as we learnt in the pre-budget report – come to the rescue?
 

Language does not simply reflect what is going on in organisational life: it also influences what people think and what they do

Linda Holbeche, director of the Holbeche Partnership and visiting professor of HRM/OD at Cass Business School