National Association of Pension Funds: conference preview

As the leading voice of workplace pensions in the UK, the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has more than 1,300 members, providing pensions to more than 10 million working people with combined assets in excess of £800bn.

This is a pivotal year for pensions in the UK. The number of schemes looking for buyers will hit an all-time high another Pensions Act will pass into law government intervention into pensions will increase while scheme costs and regulatory pressure continue to grow. NAPF's annual conference and exhibition aims to offer guidance on these and other issues.

The conference this year includes a number of plenary sessions, complemented by four programme streams designed for financial directors, HR managers, defined contribution pensions administrators and technical pensions experts.

Last year, the conference was such a success that the then secretary of state for work and pensions, John Hutton, reported that it was "without doubt, the leading forum for occupational pension provision in Britain".

Expert speakers

The conference will present a top line-up of expert speakers including pensions secretary James Purnell MP, professor Robert Winston, David Norgrove, chairman of the Pensions Regulator, and Tim Jones, chief executive officer of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority.

The programme sessions will cover topics including:

• Building confidence in pensions
• Pensions in today's benefit package
• Getting the best from defined contributions
• The way ahead for regulation
• Deficits and how to manage them
• Getting employees to value pensions

Pensions trustees will also be offered learning opportunities with the Trustee Learning Zone. This takes place on the morning of Wednesday 8 October. This year the zone will be free for non-professional trustees to attend.

Compliments of the house

Attendance at the NAPF annual conference and exhibition is free of charge to NAPF fund members - trustees, pension managers, financial directors, HR managers and administrators. There is no limit to the number of delegates each organisation can send. More than 800 delegates have already registered their interest in attending.

Finally, NAPF has designed a social programme to provide numerous opportunities for you to renew old acquaintances and make new contacts, with extended refreshment and lunch breaks allowing more time networking and viewing the exhibition, and a gala conference dinner on Thursday 9 October at the Glasgow Hilton.

Sessions for HR

This year’s NAPF conference includes an HR stream, sponsored by Personnel Today. The sessions in this stream include the following:

• Workplace advice – how much can you safely say?
• Flexible retirement – how is it working out in practice?
• Payback or payload – the place of pensions in today’s benefits package
• Board wars – the tensions between finance and personnel management
• Pensions administration – the good, the bad and the ugly.