On 6 June, TANC welcomed Sir Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London, to talk about the sustainability of pensions and care funding in the face of an ageing population.
Webb discussed how public spending is set to rise as the population ages, highlighting the fact that health spending is the biggest pressure and that action on state and public sector pensions and care costs could help with the balance.
He explained how, as minister for pensions, he had overseen reform of the state pension. As well as cost control, the main aims of the reform were better outcomes for women and lower-paid workers. On long-term care, he expressed his concerns that the forthcoming Green Paper would explore the issue without bringing us nearer to a solution. He believes that private insurance has a part to play.
Finally, Webb emphasised that tackling future spending costs is best done by prevention - but money for prevention is always a lower priority than dealing with short-term crises.
At TANC's next event on 13 September, Mike Brockman will dicuss the lessons learned from his career. For details, please visit www.tanc-cass.co.uk