Pension freedoms are being compromised

The ex-pensions minister Steve Webb is urging the government and the HMRC to do more to alert grandparents to all the pension perks they’re entitled to after it was revealed that the overwhelming majority are not receiving the full state pension. By missing out on a particular benefit, unknowing eligible grandparents are missing out on £231 a year. Over the course of their full retirement, this could possibly lead to a loss of thousands of pounds.

It is a scheme called the Specified Adult Childcare Credit. It is thought that only 1,300 grandparents are taking advantage of it despite 100,000 being eligible (a mere one per cent). The scope of the problem was found out by Webb when he sent a Freedom of Information request to the HMRC.

The purpose behind the Specified Adult Childcare Credit is to allow grandparents who give up work completely to help raise their grandchildren the chance to claim National Insurance (NI) credits.

The much talked about UK election is now well and truly behind us, how can the opinion polls have been so wrong you may be asking yourself, it had most investors worried about a hung parliament or even a Labour victory which we were led to believe would send the markets crashing down around us.

Well now you can let out a sigh of relief, or can you, the result was taken well by the UK equity markets and in the short term should provide businesses with a stable political and legislative background in which to invest for the future.

However it is debatable as to whether the UK election results will have any impact on interest rates, the Bank of England voted last week to keep the base rate at 0.50%. Official figures at the end of the last month showed the total size of the economy increased by just 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2015. That was half the 0.6 per cent growth rate seen in the previous quarter and the worst performance since late 2012 – raising fears that the recovery is running out of steam.