The UK pension reforms proposed in the Turner report have come under fire from a former government pensions adviser and from the Institute of Actuaries.

Alan Pickering, the author of a previous government report on pensions, said that the introduction of a national saving scheme could do lethal damage to existing pension arrangements. The introduction of a national pensions savings scheme, a central recommendation of the report, was its most unattractive element, according to Mr Pickering.

Mr Pickering emphasized the role that industry could play in pension reform, through work place schemes and employing older people. Well-intentioned, but misguided, interference in workplace pension scheme design by successive governments has been the single most important cause of the withdrawal of employers from risk-sharing pensions, he said.

The Institute of Actuaries has also warned that the recommendations may be missing important details. The industry body issued a statement saying that the equation between increasing life expectancy and retirement age should be fair and any pension system must be flexible enough to take uncertainties over life expectancy into account.