New schemes `not enough` to stop retirement debt

The introduction of new personal savings accounts in five years` time will not be enough to save many people from debt problems in their retirement, an industry expert has stated.

From 2012, the government plans to introduce personal account pension schemes, designed to help people plan for the future no matter what their current financial status.

As a result, The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS) said that making such scheme opt-out, rather than opt-in, would mean more people would save for retirement, especially as many do not now have as work pensions scheme.

Des Hamilton, technical director of TPAS, added: "The vast majority of people who were actively making provisions for their retirement were doing so through an occupational pension scheme. Those that don`t have an occupational pension scheme available to them, by and large, do very little."

According to the Occupational Pensioners` Alliance, only 46 per cent of adult employees in the UK are members of an occupational workplace pension scheme.