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Nigel Stanley

Nigel Stanley

I’m the TUC’s Head of Campaigns and Communications, and have been working at the TUC since 1994. I manage campaigning, media relations, parliamentary lobbying, publications and event organisation. As I work in communications and public affairs, my blogging is likely to range widely, but superficially.

If I have a specialist subject, it’s pensions. I have led a lot of the TUC’s work on implementing the Pensions Commission proposals. I have been a Trustee Member of the Nest Corporation.

In the past, I’ve freelanced in public affairs, research and journalism, including with the European Commission, Labour Party and a number of MPs. I did research, press and campaign management at the House of Commons in the 80’s and early 90’s, first for Robin Cook and then for Bryan Gould. Before that I was Organising Secretary of the Labour Co-ordinating Committee from its launch in 1978. I play ska/jazz bass guitar with the Skamonics and have part-ownership of a canal boat.

  • Pensions & Investment

    Freeze the auto-enrolment thresholds to keep women in pensions

    8th February 2012 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    The coalition government’s review of pensions auto-enrolment made two major changes to how  pensions auto-enrolment will work from the worker point of view.

    • There will be a three month wating period after someone starts a job before their employer has to auto-enrol them into a pension.
    • Instead of being auto-enrolled as soon as someone’s pay exceeds the bottom of the earnings band on which contributions have to be paid (£5,564), a new auto-enrolment trigger was introduced. This was set at the level at which people start paying income tax (£7,745). In other words as soon as your pay exceeds £7,745 you are auto-enrolled in a pension, and you and your employer both have to pay contributions on your earnings in excess of £5,564.

    The government’s consultation on uprating these thresholds has just closed. Our big concern is that the government keeps the link for the auto-enrolment trigger to the personal income tax allowance as the coalition agreement, on Lib Dem urging, says that this should rise to £10,000 a year.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    The IFS are feeding the public sector pension trolls

    31st January 2012 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    I have a piece on Left Foot Forward on today’s IFS report on public sector pensions, predictably misrepresented by much of the media.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Thirteen long years for Pensions Commission report to be made reality

    25th January 2012 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    Pensions Minister Steve Webb has just announced the new detailed timetable for pensions auto-enrolment. This provides the small print for the delay announced in the Autumn Statement following lobbying by the small business lobby and the Beecroft review.

    My strong impression is that this delay was forced on the DWP, and could even be seen as a victory over a strong push for the permanent exemption of small firms from pensions auto-enrolment. But it is still bad news.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Does uprating by prices lead to better results than uprating by wages?

    19th January 2012 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    In my earlier post on public sector pensions I asserted that indexing by earnings produces better results than indexing by prices. In the comments Luke Snell queried whether this was still true. He asked whether “this assertion is valid given trends over the past 10-15 years?”.

    Good question I thought. So I’ve knocked up a very quick spreadsheet that worked out whether you would be better off with a pension (or anything else for that matter) uprated by earnings, RPI inflation or CPI inflation.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Why pensions auto-enrolment should not hold back the minimum wage

    17th January 2012 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    Business organisations are arguing that the introduction of pensions auto-enrolment later this year is an argument for holding down the minimum wage. At first sight they might have a point.

    Pensions auto-enrolment for the first time will force employers to contribute to the pensions of their staff. This is absolutely right, but unlike some employer complaints it is undoubtedly a burden on business as pensions contributions have a price tag. No doubt for staff higher up the income scale employers will attempt to recoup some of the costs from their wages, but as you cannot cut the minimum wage this is harder for those who on the legal minimum (though there may be some pressure on hours).

    But closer examination of the figures suggests that the cost of auto-enrolment, particularly for the next few years, will be tiny for minimum wage workers.

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  • Politics

    Tracking public opinion on the cuts

    13th January 2012 — Filed under: Politics

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    Regular readers will know that I have been following polling on spending cuts. YouGov regularly ask exactly the same set of questions. This allows us to track how public opinion is moving. While the precise wording of the question can make a big difference, especially in complex areas that are not the stuff of everyday conversation, tracking the same question can give a valuable insight into how opinion is moving as the same question bias will be present in every response.

    I’ve not published any graphs for some time as public opinion was pretty constant for most of last year. People obsess over short term changes in voting intention, but these are often due to the natural variability in any survey or represent a short-term response to whatever is in the news. The truth is that not much happened on the opinion front for most of last year.

    But there are some signs of a slight move. Unfortunately it goes in the wrong direction. But it’s not huge, and the government are still losing important parts of their argument, while still ahead on the need for cuts.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Robert Peston’s peculiar public sector pensions story

    5th January 2012 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    It may be a quiet news day today, but that does not explain Robert Peston’s curious report, first on the Today programme and now on his blog, on public sector pensions. This claims – based on the work of John Ralfe:

    The increase in the normal retirement age from 60 to 67 for public sector workers has not led to significant savings in the cost of public-sector pensions.

    The story is odd in a number of ways. We can wonder why the BBC’s Business Editor is reporting on a non-business story in which he has not been much  involved before – unlike say John Moylan, their industry correspondent who has covered the story in depth. It is also strange that the BBC is covering research that has not – as far as we can tell – been published. It is certainly not on Mr Ralfe’s website.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Progress on short service refunds

    15th December 2011 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    Once upon a time, long, long ago the vast majority of workplace pensions were final-salary defined benefit schemes run by trustees. Everyone could agree that periods of short membership of such schemes were an administrative headache all round. The law therefore allowed schemes to give employees their contributions back if they left before two years service, and to give the employer theirs back too.

    Today workplace pension provision is very different. More people are paying into defined contribution workplace pensions than defined benefit pensions. Some defined contribution schemes are run as occupational schemes with trust based governance, but most are contract-based. These are provided by a commercial pensions company and cannot make short service refunds as this provision is only available to trust-based schemes.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    Difference between CPI and RPI increases to 1.4%

    30th November 2011 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    The Office for Budget Responsibility has increased its forecast for the long run difference between the CPI and RPI inflation measures to 1.4 per cent. Previously they thought it would be 1.1 per cent.

    One of the government’s attacks on public sector pensions is to change the way that pensions in payment are linked to prices. In the past they have gone up in line with the retail price inflation (RPI) inflation measure. In future they are linking pensions to the consumer price inflation (CPI) measure.

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  • Pensions & Investment

    The Autumn Statement and pensions

    29th November 2011 — Filed under: Pensions & Investment

    Nigel Stanley Nigel Stanley

    There are four items of note on pensions if we include the delay in auto-enrolment announced yesterday. Today we also learnt of a rise in the state pension age, the uprating of the state pension and a dog that did not bark.

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