UK - Various consumer groups have been invited by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to join a committee to work with the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA).

Groups including Which?, Citizens Advice, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Financial Services Authority Consumer Panel, Age Concern, Help the Aged, the Fawcett Society and the TUC will help set up the committee.  Final membership will be decided "at a later date", the DWP noted.

"The consumer representative committee will provide advice and guidance to the delivery authority based on its specialist consumer insight and will act as a forum for sharing ideas and research - as well as a consultative channel," said PADA non-executive director Jeannie Drake, who will be chairing the committee.

The PADA was established under the Pensions Act 2007 with an initial remit to provide advice and make recommendations to the government on how to deliver the personal accounts pension arrangements in place from 2012.

In a second step the UK government intends to widen the PADA's remit to give it executive powers to assume responsibility for delivering the personal accounts scheme as well as making sure employers meet their new obligations.

The first meeting of the Consumer Representative Committee will be "in the next few weeks", a press release stated.

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