Although best known in the industry for her tireless campaign to compensate the victims of lost pensions, Ros Altmann tells David Ricketts that her first ambition was to be an academic economist

It’s not often journalists working within the pensions industry sit down to interview figures who have taken on the government and won. For a start, not that many exist and even those who do, few could claim to have seen their fight through to a successful conclusion.

But luckily for us journalists, and for those who have been campaigning over the last five years for compensation as a result of the collapse of their occupational pensions, Ros Altmann has become something of a regular in the pensions press.

Altmann started her career in the City more than 20 years ago. After managing institutional investment portfolios for over a decade, she moved on to become head of equities at Chase Manhattan’s international investment operation in London and later director at Rothschild Asset Management and NatWest Investment Management.

But her success in the pensions and investments arena is a far cry from the life as an academic she almost embarked upon after studying for her PhD at the London School of Economics.

After brushing shoulders with Mervyn King and Larry Summers while studying at Harvard, she says gaining experience of life in the City was a vital part of the journey to becoming an economist.

“I had an academic job lined up when I came back from Harvard, but I decided if I was going to be an academic economist, the worst lecturers I ever met were the ones who hadn’t been in the real world. I thought I should really have some experience in the real world to be a better academic and economist.”

Altmann started her career at the Prudential during the 1980s as a trainee equity analyst, where she later moved on to become fund manager, which included work with UK pension and insurance funds. It was to prove an eventful first step for Altmann in becoming an economist, and a move she says she has never looked back on.

“It was just after exchange controls had been lifted and the stock markets were about to take off. This was a really exciting time to be in the City because all the opportunities for global investing had suddenly opened up and the Prudential was at the forefront of all of that.”

But it is Altmann’s five-year association with the 125,000 victims of wound-up pension schemes that has propelled her into the media spotlight as pensions consultant-cum-campaigner, and a role which earned her a place in the 2007 edition of Who’s Who.

“It’s been such a hard fight and I never dreamed it would take this long,” says Altmann, commenting on the government’s decision to provide compensation payments for wind-up victims at the same level offered by the Pension Protection Fund.

“It was a huge relief when the December announcement was made. I know it’s not perfect and it’s not as much as they deserve, but in any campaign you have to know when to stop. They have to get their lives back and enjoy the retirement that so far many of them have been robbed of.”

She pays tribute to the efforts of her fellow campaigners from the Pensions Action Group (PAG), who she says had to hold down jobs in retirement while continuing with their campaign.

But for many of those who lost their pension, the government’s offer of compensation is too little too late. Undoubtedly though, much of the success can be attributed to Altmann’s unyielding determination to fight the government on behalf of those who were left with nothing when their sponsoring companies went bust.

Altmann first became involved with the campaign for wind-up victims when she was approached by the BBC’s Panorama, who were making a documentary on the Allied Steel and Wire (ASW) collapse in south Wales during 2002.

Programme makers from the BBC asked her to meet with baffled ASW workers and explain what had happened to their pensions after the government showed a reluctance to discuss the collapse.

“They were such great people,” Altmann says when asked about her first meeting with workers in Cardiff.

“They still had a sense of humour and were trying to make the best of it all but they were in desperate straits and they had lost it all. They were genuinely saying in their sixties ‘how can I find a job?’

“I was so impressed. They worked for this company all their lives and trusted the government who told them their pensions were safe. They couldn’t believe this could happen and nobody had warned them.”

Altmann’s ability to break down the complex language of pensions, particularly to the media, meant a surge in publicity would eventually be afforded to the campaign. By turning the spotlight on the issue, Altmann says she was initially met with some opposition from within the pensions industry.

“When I made the Panorama programme I had a lot of phone calls and emails asking me why I was rocking the boat. People were telling me the markets would recover and it was a tiny blip.

“I kept telling them that more of these schemes would fail and that something had to be done now. Sure enough, over the next period a lot of schemes kept failing.”

Following the programme, founding PAG members approached Altmann asking for her advice on ways to move the focus of their campaign for pensions justice forward.

During her time working at Number 10 as a government policy adviser, Altmann had access to people who were influencing pension policy.

Eventually, Altmann ended up advising PAG members and enabling them to talk to people at the very top within government. One of her main roles initially involved explaining to MPs and the media that the issue was not the fault of the employers or markets, as some had believed, but the laws governing pensions that existed at the time.

Asked why she decided to become so heavily involved in the PAG campaign, she says: “I just couldn’t turn my back on such a terrible injustice and I had to do whatever I could to help. Sadly, I watched some people die and their widows were left with nothing. I thought, we can’t treat people this way in 21st century Britain.”

One of the most successful campaigns led by PAG was ‘Stripped of our pensions’, which saw hundreds of pensioners throwing off their clothes in a bid to raise awareness.

“That’s the slogan I’m most proud of,” says Altmann. “It just captures it all and it worked so well.”

Looking to the future, Altmann believes the UK is heading towards a further pensions disaster unless the government addresses what she sees as some of the fundamental flaws in its approach to pensions.

“The whole pensions policy is dreadfully depressing right now. We are still going in the wrong direction and we haven’t grasped the vital issues. We have to get away from mass means-testing of pensioners because it stops people from saving.

“What’s been done with the state pension system is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The whole system is sinking.”

Altmann echoes sentiments already widely aired within the industry regarding means-tested benefits and the potential detriment to low paid workers, many of whom may end up no better off in retirement than if they had not saved. And with this fiery issue being fuelled with the introduction of personal accounts, Altmann argues further generations could lose out on some of their pension savings if the issue is ignored.

“There is a real suitability problem that could end up being a rerun of the final salary scheme scandal that I’ve had to fight so hard to undo. This is an issue particularly

for people auto-enrolled into these accounts who were never warned that the pension credit when they retire could take their whole pension away.

“It may be a small percentage of people, but you are still talking hundreds of thousands.”

As a potential solution to this pending pensions disaster, Altmann believes the government should be encouraging those entering retirement to work on a part-time basis.

“Pensions on their own are not going to solve the problem because most people will never be able to save enough to provide a pension to live on for decades in retirement. What we have to do is encourage people to work part-time in later life so that pensions become a top-up benefit.

“Looking at the demographics, we’re heading for a real economic downturn as a result of people being encouraged to pull completely out of the labour force in their sixties and then do nothing. What are they going to live on?”

Given Altmann’s less than optimistic outlook for pensions, tomorrow’s generation of pensioners can only hope she continues to press the government to reform its approach to saving, even if it is to avoid a majority of us stripping off to fight for our pensions in retirement.

David Ricketts is a reporter for Pensions Week

Ros Altmann’s CV

• 2000-2005 - Government policy adviser
• April-Sept 2000 - UK Treasury, Consultant on Myners review
• 1991-1993 - NatWest Investment Management, Board director
• 1989-1991 - Rothschild Asset Management, Board director
• 1981-1984 - Prudential Assurance, Fund manager
• 1978-1981 - London School of Economics, Ph.D in economics
• 1977-1978 - Harvard University, Kennedy scholar, studying public policy and government
• 1974-1977 - University College, London,BSc in economics

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