I can announce today we will introduce the first ever National Collective Pension Scheme for workers in the care sector. Fair pay, fair terms and conditions, and now a proper pension scheme to give our care workers the respect that they deserve
(Yvette Cooper, Health and Social Care Secretary speech at 2026 Labour Party Conference
This announcement on creating a National Collective Pension Scheme signifies a welcome and long overdue focus on adult social care workers’ futures. However, its success will depend on the details, including how the scheme is funded and administered.
Government right to focus on this crucial issue
The government is right to move to enhance adult social care worker pension prospects, and we are encouraged by this focus on wider conditions beyond basic pay. In addition to the risk of poverty in retirement that this employment’s entrenched very low pay increases, care work has ongoing issues over status and struggles to professionalise.
There are several reasons why this focus on care worker pensions is much needed. Adult social care workers tend to have relatively low amounts of pension saving, and are more likely to opt out of workplace pensions schemes than workers in most other sectors. The prevalent low pay, alongside part-time and often insecure contracts, can limit care workers’ pension saving capacity, and affect their eligibility for workplace pension schemes. Care employment is also embedded within wider inequalities, with over-representation of groups known to be under-pensioned, for example, migrants, ethnic minorities, and women. For instance, women are more likely to have more diverse employment histories, greater care responsibilities, and fewer opportunities to engage with pension planning.
Although the government is yet to provide specific details on its plans, a collective scheme has various benefits. Adult social care is characterised by high turnover and workers moving between a variety of employment arrangements. Instead of accumulating a number of small, dormant pension pots with different providers, a single portable national scheme would follow staff through changes of employment in the sector. This would reduce complexity for all, and the administrative burden for providers. Pooling members’ funds into one large central source would enable trustees to keep money invested in higher-yielding, long-term assets for extended periods. This has the potential to generate higher expected pension payouts.
In our Centre for Care research on adult social care workers’ pension engagement, including scheme membership and awareness, we have spoken to care workers and adult social care or pensions representatives from the third sector, civil service, and policy, to compile a picture of current experiences. This has included evidence of barriers to greater pension saving and better pension information provision for care workers. Our findings echo the concerns identified by the government.
In her speech Cooper argued that ‘it is just wrong that the people who work hardest to help others maintain dignity and respect in old age too often get nothing back for retirement themselves’. This comment is remarkably similar to the argument made by adult social care worker Paula in one of our focus groups:
You know you’re not even gonna get a good pension at the end of it. That’s so demoralising for our industry, and what is the motivation for people to stay? Because even at the end of it, if you even make it physically to your pensionable age, and it’s not even going to be that great, it just … that’s quite soul-destroying.
Should a suitably developed and funded National Collective Pension Scheme come to fruition, it has the potential to communicate to care workers the value of what they do and to address those concerns over fairness. Paula also points to how this scheme offers potential to aid worker retention, which is crucial considering the sector’s ongoing labour shortage.
Recommendations
Our pensions research, carried out in spring 2026, led us to develop a series of recommendations to strengthen care workers’ pension prospects. These include the creation of a care sector-specific portable national pension scheme of the type the government has announced, and we commend the attention the government is giving to this. Our recommendations, which feature in a research briefing that we will publish imminently, note that the National Collective Pension Scheme needs to be accompanied by measures to enhance care workers’ access to reliable pensions information. We advocate that care providers could be mandated to grant paid work time for employees to attend pensions information sessions and access free guidance, directly mirroring practice in sectors such as the Civil Service. We also call for further exploration of the role of organisations such as the Money and Pensions Service in supporting the provision of adult social care-specific information.
Ongoing wider improvements to the quality of adult social care working conditions stand to benefit workers’ pension savings, and we welcome this broader consideration of worker pay and conditions. This is important as our research shows that low pay and more immediate financial concerns lead to adult social care workers prioritising these needs ahead of saving for the future. These efforts to improve pay and conditions in adult social care increase the likelihood of pension scheme membership and enhanced savings. The new scheme should be accompanied by a campaign to promote the benefits of pension scheme membership. We also contend that greater attention should be given to the role of pensions in shaping care worker recruitment and retention.
Overall, this long overdue development is welcome, and chimes with our research findings. However, we reiterate our words of caution. The scheme’s success will depend on how it is funded, administered, and promoted, and the extent to which eligibility criteria includes all adult social care workers. Ensuring that scheme membership is straightforward is critical for sector-wide compliance. In order to strengthen retirement security, it must be accompanied by higher basic pay and improved contribution levels. If these issues can be suitably addressed, a National Collective Pension Scheme offers an important step forward in recognising and rewarding care workers’ valuable societal role.
About the authors:
In the Centre for Care, Duncan works with Dr Liam Foster in the Care Workforce Change research group. They are currently researching care workers’ organising activities, including their role in trade unions, campaign groups and community organising. This piece introduces the study.
Professor Liam Foster is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Sheffield, England, who specializes in pensions, extending working lives, gender inequalities and theories of ageing. Professor Foster has developed a national and international profile in ageing and pensions.
