The government is to develop a single, public financial guidance body to provide individuals with easy access to pensions and money guidance, and debt advice.
The new body will replace Pension Wise, The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS), and the Money Advice Service.
Plans laid out in the March 2016 Budget originally set out to develop two guidance bodies. This would have included replacing the Money Advice Service with a more streamlined equivalent, and bringing together Pension Wise and TPAS into a new pensions guidance body.
A consultation into the restructure highlighted concerns over the effectiveness of two separate bodies, leading to the decision to instead develop a single body in order to provide a better experience for consumers.
A consultation will be launched on the best way to design a single body model.
Legislation to create new public financial guidance bodies will be excluded from the Pensions Schemes Bill.
Richard Harrington, minister for pensions, said: “A single guidance body will be more efficient and will help consumers make the right financial decisions, and we are committed to ensuring people can access the best free and impartial financial guidance possible.”
Simon Kirby, economic secretary to the Treasury, added: “We strongly believe that creating one public guidance body is the best way of making it as easy as possible for people to access the help they need to get their financial questions answered.”
