V-FM: The Pensions Podcast

In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico chat to Willis Towers Watson's Simon Eagle. Simon has been instrumental in the development of CDC in the UK, being the scheme actuary for the Royal Mail CDC scheme. We chatted through the evolution of CDC in the UK, the original ideas behind defined ambition, the introduction of the Royal Mail scheme, and what next for CDC, including retirement-only CDC. We also discussed the challenges of introducing retirement-only CDC and how some of these challenges can be addressed in the context of how people turn their pension pot into a retirement income. We found out how Simon got into pensions and, of course, what value for money means to him.  

Happy New Year to all our listeners! In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Nico and Darren welcome 2026 in what will be (another) busy year for pensions. As well as chatting about the festive season (and Nico’s house fire - don’t worry all ended up ok!), we take a look at what to expect in 2026... and have an impromptu discussion about the Pensions Schemes Bill and Fiduciary duty among a host of other things.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Nico and Darren chat to pensions lawyer extraordinaire, Robin Ellison. Robin is not shy with his views on policy and regulation and the podcast takes a whistle stop tour through many of the issues the pensions industry is grappling with currently. As well as welcoming the new pensions minister, we talk about Robin's foray into politics with the 'U' party, his views on regulatory policy and regulation including current initiatives to promote value for money and force consolidation, and a pension scheme investing in bitcoin. We also discuss climate change and the devastating fires in Los Angeles. We find out how Robin got into pensions and ask Robin what value for money means to him. Tune in to hear all this and a whole lot more!  It's celebration time for VFM as this is the 100th episode of the podcast (including a number of specials that we have recorded over the past couple of years). Here's to the next 100 episodes!

A Happy New Year to all our listeners!! In this episode of V-FM Pensions, Darren and Nico kick off the year with an in depth discussion of the UK Government's consultation on reforms to the Defined Contribution pension market. This consultation is part of the Mansion House package of measures published on 14 November 2024. We chat through the main elements of the consultation including: the (flawed?) premise behind the Mansion House agenda; what scale really means and what we actually mean by a default; bulk transfers without consent; and the role of employers and advisers in choosing a pension scheme. This is our response to the Government's consultation. Fair to say it asks more questions than it answers, but we hope it helps and that others find it useful as they go about pulling together their own responses.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions Darren and Nico chat to one of the architects of auto enrolment in the UK and current NEST CEO Helen Dean.   Helen talks about her role in helping to deliver the biggest pension reform ever seen in the UK and the creation of NEST. This episode has it all.... pensions, the need for scale, productive finance, wider savings and financial wellbeing, and, of course, we ask Helen what value for money means to her. 

In this episode of V-FM, Darren and Nico chat to Sir Steve Webb about politics, pensions and his time leading the pensions charge during his time as pensions minister.   Steve was in post for 5 years and broke the mould of having a new pensions minister every nine months or so. He was instrumental in reviewing and helping to deliver the auto enrolment reforms and in the introduction of the single tier pension. He also had his finger prints on the pensions triple lock; the Lib Dem manifesto commitment that made its way into the Coalition Agreement. He certainly made the most of his time in the pensions hot seat!   We talk PLSA retirement living standards, tax relief and the LTA, triple lock and the state pension, pensions freedom and choice, small pots consolidation and pot for life, and a whole lot more! We also find out what value for money means to Steve.

In this episode of V-FM, the pensions podcast, Darren and Nico chat the Pension Policy Institute's Chris Curry. Chris is also Principal of the Pensions Dashboards programme. As usual, topics for discussion are wide and varied: labour's pensions review, DC priorities for 2024, consolidation, the PPI's Policy Wheel, state pensions, admin, data and dashboards and, of course, what value for money means to Chris! (spoiler: it's the PPI!) As an added bonus, and in a V-FM podcast first, Nico gets to crack the first quantum mechanics joke on V-FM!  

In the first V-FM special of 2024, Nico and Darren talk to Lord David Willets of Havant. Lord Willets served as Minister of State for Universities and Science from 2010 until July 2014, as well as being in John Major’s Government in the mid 1990s. He became a member of the House of Lords in 2015 and is President of the Resolution Foundation. This podcast has it all: intergenerational inequality and his book titled 'The Pinch', state pensions, housing, auto enrolment, and productive finance. We also, of course, ask Lord Willets what value for money means to him.

In this season opener, Darren and Nico chat to Scottish Widows' Pete Glancy and Rob Cochran. We welcomed Rob back to the pod to talk about his Mountain Warehouse rucksack, and Pete joined us to talk snooker and fine wines. In the podcast we look forward to the year ahead and chat about the importance of communicating effectively. We talk Big Zuu and pensions attention, pot for life, the pensions mirror, understanding members, and, of course, value for money and consolidation.  

When two pension geeks have an idea (developed over a few pints) to start a Podcast on value for money in pensions: V-FM. In this Pilot Episode Nico Aspinall and Darren Philp chat about value for money and why they have set up this weekly show. Next week Darren and Nico will be joined by our first guest, David Butcher, Trustee of the Scottish Widows' and People's Pension Mastertrusts.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Nico and Darren continue ploughing through listener questions, with a focus this time on how the system actually turns pots into pensions. We chat retirement income and pension freedoms; investment in the UK; pension dashboards; product innovation; lessons from Australia; regulation and what the future might look like. 

In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico put themselves at the mercy of listener questions in this Q+A special (part one...) that lays bare some of the current and emerging fault lines in UK pensions... Listeners’ questions push Darren and Nico to discuss whether VFM is about member outcomes, system outcomes, or society at large? Pensions exist to pay money in retirement, and anything else is a bonus only if it doesn’t cost members.... discuss? From net zero to DB schemes quietly propping up government debt, the episode surfaces a deeper tension that is at the heart of the system... are pensions private savings vehicles or instruments of public policy? The hosts are critical of the current VFM framework as being too focused on inputs, blind to real-world outcomes, and ill-equipped to judge a 60-year savings journey. Meanwhile, engagement remains superficial, policymaking short-term, and adequacy the elephant in the room. And hanging over it all, a bigger doubt: what if the long-term equity growth story the whole system relies on doesn’t hold?

In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico chat to Simon Chrystal, CEO of WPS Advisory. Simon's been on the pod before and we wanted to get him back on to talk about the evolution of his advisory business and some of the interesting stuff he is doing with the rollout of his LifeStage app. Simon reframes value for money as a practical, human outcome improving people’s lives rather than a technical or regulatory metric. He argues the proposed framework overcomplicates what should be common sense, reflecting a wider issue: the pensions industry has failed to lead innovation despite a decades-long shift toward individual financial responsibility, leaving regulators to fill the gap. Drawing on WPS Advisory’s experience Simon highlights both the scale of demand for advice and the barriers created by regulation. He points to rising PI insurance costs, commercial pressure from some quarters to compromise standards in DB transfers, and FCA data showing around 600,000 consumers losing ongoing advice over two years as evidence of an industry under strain and increasingly unable to serve consumers effectively. Using data from the LifeStage Money app, he shows people want control over day-to-day finances first, with tight budgets and property dominating wealth, and making the case that VFM frameworks must start with real consumer needs, not assumptions.

This week on V-FM, hosts Darren and Nico are joined by Philip Smith and Ruari Grant from TPT, a £11.5bn, 500,000-member hybrid powerhouse quietly shaping some of the biggest shifts in UK pensions. From mandation risks and the unanswered questions behind the £25bn scale test, to the real tensions inside the Value for Money framework, this conversation goes straight to the heart of the Pensions Bill and why detail really matters. We get into what “value” actually means, the risk of herding into vanilla strategies, and why decumulation is the missing piece in today’s policy push. Plus we take a look at TPT’s award-winning retirement solution, its profit-for-purpose model, and how CDC fits alongside DC, not instead of it. Big themes, sharp takes, lots discussed and lots still to discuss! 🎧 Well worth a listen 🎧 

In this episode of V-FM, hosts Darren and Nico chat to LCP’s Sam Cobley discussing the role of Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) in the UK pensions system. Sitting between DC and DB, CDC pools members with the aim of delivering a more stable retirement income, but requires savers to give up some of the flexibility offered by DC. The discussion centres on whether the potential income uplift is large enough to justify that trade-off. Sam challenges some of the more optimistic claims about CDC outcomes, with Nico coining the term “CDC washing” to describe estimates of 50–75% higher incomes based on outdated comparisons with annuity-targeting DC strategies. Sam’s recent analysis suggests a more realistic improvement of around 15–25% compared with modern income-drawdown DC approaches, reflecting how rapidly DC investment strategies have evolved. The conversation explores how CDC could work in practice from cohorting and buffers, to which retirees it may suit best. While CDC could offer better value for certain cohorts, particularly those seeking income stability, its success will depend on careful design, fair pricing, and how it competes alongside an increasingly sophisticated DC market.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico chat to Now: Pensions' Samantha Gould. Samantha heads up Now's PR and campaigns and has been particularly vocal in campaigning about pensions inequality. We explore the structural drivers of the gender pensions gap and the wider challenge of under-pensioned groups. Samantha discusses her campaigning work since the first gender pensions gap report in 2019 (with the Pensions Policy Institute), which has since expanded to identify eight groups most at risk of pension poverty. A key theme is women’s “squiggly careers”, where time out of the workforce for childcare or elder care, combined with the design of auto enrolment, prevents millions from building adequate pension savings. Samantha argues that reforms such as amending the auto enrolment rules, mandating pension sharing orders in divorce and improving childcare and maternity pension contributions could materially narrow the gap. The discussion touches on pension dashboards, the balance between income security and access to capital in retirement, and the meaning of value for money. For Samantha, it ultimately comes down to fairness... ensuring the pensions system works for people regardless of gender, background or career path.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Darren and Nico take a meander through some recent pension news stories. The pair discuss: Reform’s proposal to consolidate the LGPS into a single UK-focused sovereign wealth fund and shift new entrants from DB to DC, questioning both the investment logic and the politics; the government’s VFM framework, highlighting a core tension between a system measuring capital growth with policy prioritising retirement income outcomes; the unintended consequences of policy in motion; from salary sacrifice reforms that may disproportionately affect lower-paid workers, to scale tests in the Pension Schemes Bill that could shut out innovators.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions, hosts Nico and Darren welcome their first-ever podcast guest back to the show: David Butcher. They catch up with David to hear how his mindfulness coaching through Positively Aware is going and to get his thoughts on V-FM, trusteeship, and the insight he has gained from recent trustee experiences. David also shares a brilliant story about gatecrashing a festival… a moment that somehow didn’t make it into his first appearance (and, honestly, the real reason we invited him back...). And to round things off, David leads listeners through a short meditation at the end of the episode.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions, Darren and Nico chat through their thoughts on the FCA and TPR's latest consultation on value for money (CP 26/1). In a must listen episode for anyone developing their response to the consultation, the duo's personal thoughts (not those of their employers...) include: This isn’t Value for Money it’s a performance regime: The consultation has morphed into a capital-performance test with a costs add-on. Most of the “value” bits (service, engagement, member outcomes) have been kicked into the long grass. It risks sabotaging the retirement-income agenda: Government wants schemes to deliver better retirement outcomes, but the VFM framework measures success like everyone’s just cashing out. That’s a recipe for schemes doing the wrong thing in the run-up to retirement. The penalties are so harsh they’ll force providers to copy each other: Nobody is going to take investment risk, innovate, or deviate from the herd. The safest strategy becomes: hug the benchmark Mansion House and VFM are pulling in opposite directions: Policy says: invest in private markets and the UK economy. VFM says: don’t you dare underperform your peers. Put those together and you get one outcome: providers won’t touch the assets government wants them to buy. Costs and charges are still a mess, just with nicer spreadsheets: The consultation tries to build credibility through multiple “net” performance numbers, but exemptions, hidden costs, and inconsistent definitions mean the figures still won’t add up in the real world. The whole thing dodges the real problem... people aren’t saving enough: VFM is starting to look like the policy equivalent of jangling keys in front of a baby, distracting everyone from the uncomfortable truth that adequacy and contributions matter more than almost anything in the framework.

In this episode of V-FM Pensions hosts Darren and Nico chat to Pan Trustees' Nicholas Chadha to explore what value for money means in modern trusteeship. Nick reflects on his journey from actuarial adviser to professional trustee, and shares insight into schemes at very different ends of the spectrum, from those entering the PPF with recovery plans acting as a drag on sponsors, to schemes managing surplus and difficult decisions around how it should be shared between members and employers. We discuss the ins and outs of the innovative Aberdeen Stagecoach deal as part of a wider conversation about future options for DB schemes. We also chat about barriers for schemes moving to superfunds and conflicts of interest within professional trustee firms. Nick makes the case that true value for money isn’t about defaulting to industry orthodoxy... it’s about spending wisely, challenging assumptions, and ultimately improving outcomes for members.