Staple Inn was the venue for the Profession's competition workshop on 1 November 2005 where teams generated ideas to help consumers tackle the decisions around decumulating their retirement assets. The Profession had identified that the financial services industry needs to evolve to suit the changing nature of retirement, which increasingly features an initial phase of part-time retirement and a final period of prolonged long term care. Much of the debate in advance of the Pensions Commission's report, due for publication at the end of November 2005, has centred on expected shortfalls in the accumulation of pension saving, with insufficient focus on the needs of consumers for more support to manage the risks they face after retirement. The competition marked the start of a thought leadership campaign in which the Profession will seek to redress matters.

This innovative event sought to:

• draw attention to the looming crisis that many middle income retirees will face once they can no longer look to Defined Benefit employers' schemes to manage their retirement income and retirement risks.
• challenge the industry to take stock and adapt to the resulting new "retail" scale demands this will place on it.

Seven teams took part in the competition: Barnet Waddingham, Canada Life, Co-operative Insurance Society, Hewitt & Associates, Legal & General and William Burrows Annuities, plus a team of FT readers, captained by Neil Churchill of Age Concern.

The competition was run on the style of a "pub quiz" with five rounds covering different aspects of retirement.

• 'part-time retirement', where people may have some sort of pension but also a degree of part-time work;
• 'full-time retirement' where the pensioner is wholly dependent on his or her savings and pensions;
• the later stages of retirement, when failing health will require often expensive long-term care;
• how the transition between these ages should be managed;
• how new products should be communicated and distributed.

The teams' ideas covered product design, advice, education, distribution, integration of residential property and the availability of new instruments and institutions in the annuity market. They also made suggestions about the role of the government, and how it taxes and incentivises savings, benefits, older workers and long term care provision.

The panel of judges comprised Debbie Harrison of the Pensions Institute at Cass Business School; Deborah Cooper of Mercer Human Resources Consulting; Mick McAteer of Which?; Ian Naismith of Scottish Widows; and Ian Sissons of Munich Reinsurance Group.

Congratulations to the Legal & General team (pictured left), led by Adrian Boulding, who won two of the "rounds" and were declared overall winners of the competition.

The key changes outlined in L&G's "Retirement Income Plan" approach were:

• legislation to say that provided a pensioner has a secure lifelong level of income of 150% of the poverty threshold at the time of their retirement, they should be free to consume their pension as fast as they wish;
• a cultural shift amongst pensioners away from home ownership and towards renting;
• much increased use of portfolio careers and part-time working amongst the elderly, the concept of "retirement" reserved for the less able-bodied;
• free long-term care for the elderly infirm, paid for through an increased but hypothecated inheritance tax.

The team of FT readers also did exceptionally well, also winning two rounds, while William Burrows Annuities won the other round. Other teams were commended for tackling particular rounds in an inventive manner; "thinking outside the box" was definitely the order of the day!

As well as feeding in to the Profession's response to the Turner Report, the competition has generated a number of suggestions for research to be lead by the Profession to stimulate further industry debate. Details will be available on the website and in the Profession's calls for research in the near future.