This is a report on a visit I made to the Minister for Pensions, Malcolm Wicks.  It was nothing directly to do with AMIPP - IBM was not mentioned, even in an oblique way like "foreign ownership" or "undelivered pension promises".   The visit was relevant to AMIPP only in the sense that what is good for occupational pensioners as a whole is likely to be good for members of IBM UK's pension schemes.  I know from the feedback on the Thorn case that some of you are interested in pension matters that are not specific to IBM, and are interested in the way things are done as well as the substance of the debate.

My visit arose because COPAS, which AMIPP is a member of, recently merged with another organisation, the Alliance of Occupational Pensioners, to form OPA - the Occupational Pensioners Alliance.  OPA became the only national body exclusively concerned with the interests of the consumer of occupational pensions so that gave us cause to seek introducing ourselves to the Minister.  Four of us went.  I went in the role of OPA chairman and the other three were:

Roger Turner is a rare breed because he is a full time paid employee of a pensioners' association.  This has arisen because the default for Post Office and BT workers on retirement is to become members of their pensioners association and pay a subscription to that.  The result is a pensioners' association with an income of around £1M p.a.  In addition to paid staff, this association hires professional help in its dealings with Parliament.   Roger arranged the meeting.

John Batstone is chairman of the National Association of British Steel Pensioners, and has long and strong relationship with the Iron and Steel union ISTC

Mike Moriaty is a  member of the Association of Electricity Supply Pensioners and an elected retiree trustee of a scheme about the size of IBM UK's.

Ahead of the meeting with the Minister, we chatted in a coffee bar and decided the items we wanted to bring up, and their priority order.  The meeting was at Richmond House.  The Department of Work and Pensions has a front office and backrooms, rather like the IBM Hursley site has the House plus scattered buildings.  (Some of us claim the best work at Hursley was done in Terrapins).   The majority of the DWP offices in London are at the Adelphi - rows of similar offices and when I went the person who had booked the meeting room had difficulty finding it. (Reminders of IBM again).   After a minimal security check (briefcase looked into but no body search or scan, no ID check) we waited ten minutes in the Richmond House foyer and then ten more in an ante-room.  Could it be that there is a target that nobody waits more than ten minutes unattended to?

Eventually we were shepherded into the Minister's meeting room and he came a minute later.  A large room with high ceilings so the table (dark polished wood with room for about ten around it) certainly did not dominate the room.  The four of us, the Minister, and two aides made a discussion group of seven.  The aides were very capable, and remarkably young.  This was not just an "all policemen seem young to the old" effect.  I was encouraged to see the "if you are talented enough you are old enough" attitude in play.  Before the Minister came in, I asked one aide if he wrote the letters the Minister signed, expecting a diplomatic non-answer, but got "sometimes", which was good to hear.

Roger did his piece on what OPA is, introduced the Member Trustees issue, and we got into discussion mode.  (The issue is covered on the web, here and here.)   Essentially, at this time (Nov 2003), we cannot fathom why the government plans are what they are.  The discussion didn't tell us but we were not ignored - it was more a matter of  "We understand your points and we will get back to you".  Those of you who saw the Minister at the COPAS SE meeting will have found him difficult to assess because he didn't know COPAS and read a generic speech.  In his working context he was more impressive - aware of issues and of what the DWP was currently working on, and giving direction for the staffwork.

I introduced the OPA issues about possible weakening of the Pensions Protection Fund.  The discussion covered most of the issues sensibly, although the Minister struck one wrong note in my mind.  When I mentioned the article from the Independent that Freddy posted for us his reaction was along the lines "I don't know about that article but you can't trust what you read in the papers".  I thought that was disingenuous - wouldn't you expect a Minister to be briefed frequently about what the papers say about his policies, especially when ideas are attributed to his boss?

Mike brought up a complex issue about people who were given options (about when they were to take their pension) and now find that things they were not told about, or which the government are changing, mean that they made an unsuccessful choice.  I wouldn't be able to describe the details, although a lot of people are affected I'm told, so it was not a surprise when the Minister decided this issue was best addressed by writing to his staff.

All in all, not such a profound insight into the workings of government as the Hutton enquiry provided, but one which I found encouraging.

Brian Marks, Nov 2003

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