New financial advice body to be established
It was announced earlier this year as part of the Queen’s speech that the pensions guidance service, Pension Wise is to be merged with the Pension Advisory Service and Money Advice Service. The three money advice services will be merged into a single UK-wide body.
In a joint announcement, the Economic Secretary and the Minister for Pensions have confirmed that plans to develop a single public financial guidance body responsible for all debt advice, money and pensions guidance are to move ahead.
The legislative changes necessary to create a single public financial guidance body will take some time. The new merged body is not expected to be in place until April 2018 at the earliest.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Kirby, said:
‘Our government wants to give ordinary people more control over their lives, and that includes their financial security. We strongly believe that creating one public guidance body is the best way of making it as easy as possible for people to access the help they need to get their financial questions answered.’
There will now be a consultation process exploring the best way to design a single body. The legislation to create new public financial guidance bodies will not now be included in the Pensions Schemes Bill.