The Centre for Retirement Reform, which launched earlier this year, has a clear vision for the changes it would like to see – and knows exactly which way to go to reach its goals

Redundancy payments are always bittersweet. But current government proposals could mean compensation leaves an even less palatable taste in the mouth. That’s because, in an ugly side-effect of its bid to spread the tax relief on pensions more widely, the government could soon find itself penalising the newly unemployed, simply because of their redundancy money.

Slowly but surely, pension policy seems to be moving in one direction: compulsion. Apparently exhausted with the long-term nature of encouraging people to take responsibility for retirement, the last few years have seen a shift of which personal accounts and auto-enrolment are the most high profile elements.

Why would an employer with a great pension scheme not want to tell the workforce about it whenever possible? No, I can’t work it out either.

There is a theory that if you say something often enough, people will believe it. In practice this works only so long as enough people are convinced. The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) is hoping that enough people will be convinced about pensions reform and personal accounts, but the feedback from various influential audiences suggests otherwise.

According to the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), employees are showing more confidence in workplace pensions. When asked how confident they were in saving into a pension, compared with other forms of saving, 50% of those surveyed in Q1 of this year said they were confident. This compares to 48% for the same period in 2008. This is welcome news at a time when media headlines could have sent everyone into a spiral of despair.

Tempting though it is to shoot the bringers of more recession news, one set of messengers should be embraced.