The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has commissioned Ipsos MORI to carry out a survey exploring the public’s awareness and understanding of the State Pension system and, specifically, of upcoming State Pension reforms.

From April 2016, the current basic and additional State Pension will be replaced by a new flat rate State Pension, which aims to simplify the State Pension system and make it easier for people to plan for later life. But as you might imagine, when it comes to pensions simplification is often elusive.

The survey interviewed 2,212 GB adults aged 22 or older (of which 1,443 had not yet retired) between 4th to 24th July 2014. The findings. provide insight into levels of awareness and understanding of the changes. The results are eye opening:

• Asked if they needed to find out more about saving for retirement 42% ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘tended to agree’. The figure drops marginally with age, but was still 29% in the 50-64 age band.
• When asked if they avoided thinking about retirement about a third of people (37%) ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘tended to agree’. Perhaps more worrying was the fact the the figure was 31% for the 50-64 age band.
• Nearly half of respondents (44%) thought that it was either ‘definitely true’ or ‘probably true’ that ‘If you are already getting a State Pension, this amount will change as a result of the new State Pension changes.
• In response to being asked if they knew how the state pension changes would affect them, if at all only 22% ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘tended to agree’ that they knew how the changes would affect them.

Whether what they thought they knew was correct remains to be seen.