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A-Day: are you ready?

Britain's life insurance industry is under a great deal of strain as it strives to meet the 6th April 2006 deadline to implement the government's new pension simplification plans.

These findings come from a new report commissioned by Xansa:

• Time Scales: 50 per cent of the industry admits that it is still on the starting blocks in terms of preparation
  
• Complexity: Preparations were described as 'the biggest and most complex tasks we have ever undertaken'
  
• Skills: Nine in ten providers are worried that the skills gaps in their companies will leave them exposed
  
• Scope: There is widespread concern about the implications of the regulations that the Inland Revenue has yet to publish

Sue Valler, chairman of the Investment & Life Assurance Group (ILAG) commented: "We're pleased that Xansa has commissioned this report into the state of preparations for A-Day. Its findings are very timely with less than twelve months to go. Our members are committed to meeting the deadline, but they do need the Inland Revenue to issue the remaining regulations very shortly to ensure that they are prepared for pension simplification."

Xansa has been helping life and pension companies do more for their customers for over thirty years and is currently supporting three of the top five providers prepare for pension simplification. We can also offer other providers the opportunity of taking advantage of our flexible pool of specialist staff, based here in the UK, to help them maintain their business development programmes and meet the A-Day deadline,

• Resourcing the A-Day programmes: 90% of respondents are worried about skills gaps in their companies. They feel that they will need more specialists who can interpret 'civil service speak' into the language of computer programming.
  
• Maintaining support for business as usual: Many interviewees admitted that they had pulled staff off other projects to cope which means that other vital work is not being done. As one participant said, "requests for resource from other change programmes may stretch the availability of our internal resources..."

More information

To request a copy of Xansa's comprehensive A-Day briefing based on this research please contact us via marketing@xansa.com.

The briefing highlights the concerns of pensions providers as A-Day approaches. It illustrates different strategies and sets out how Xansa can help to address many of the challenges.

Related pages

• New report puts pressure on Inland Revenue to release remaining pension simplification regulation