January Briefing note

Resolution Foundation Briefing Note, January 2008

The Resolution Foundation is an independent research and policy organisation established in 2005. The Foundation works on a project basis aiming to produce robust research, develop practical policy proposals and engage actively in the policy-making process. We aim to bring about change in areas where low earners are disadvantaged in today’s mixed economy:

• By low earners we mean people on low incomes in work (sometimes referred to as ‘the working poor’) or those in retirement with modest means, who are often caught up in means-testing, not those in acute poverty
• Today’s mixed economy means people have to engage with a range of public, private and voluntary organisations and need to be able to navigate this often complex system

This approach shapes all our work and in our first project we examined how low earners accessed and used financial services.Following detailed research, we published proposals for a new national service to provide generic financial advice. This culminated in the Treasury’s announcement of a review, led by Otto Thoresen, to determine how to establish such a service. The Review’s final report is due in March. To complement our project on generic financial advice, we have published work on comparison websites and pensions:

• We produced a research report ‘Compare and Contrast’ which examined how the UK comparison website market is serving consumers. This recommended the establishment of a voluntary code of practice which the industry is now collectively taking forward
• The current pension reforms and the development of Personal Accounts, which are in the main aimed at low earners, means that people will need to be empowered to make informed pension decisions within their individual financial context and alongside their wider financial decisions

We continue to lobby for a step change in the financial health of the nation which we believe a generic financial advice service could facilitate. This means that the financial capability and the financial inclusion agenda, the development of Personal Accounts and the Thoresen Review need to work together.

Our second major project is focusing on the elderly care system. Our objective is to promote a fairer, more efficient and higher quality supply of elderly care services by again taking a mixed market approach and analysing this issue, particularly, from the perspective of low earners. Research commissioned from YouGov and Deloitte is being published on 19th February and will form our first contribution to the debate.

As we move forward with this work, we are keen to engage with key stakeholders across different sectors to ensure that we complement existing work and deliver informed, feasible policy solutions that will command support and influence the reform process.

For further information please contact Cara Brown on 020 7489 4870 or cara.brown@resolutionfoundation.org

All our research, reports, briefings, seminar notes are available on our website www.resolutionfoundation.org