Senator Ben Shenton says he has asked the Treasury how much the deficit amounts to under the FRS 17 accounting rules – which are now mandatory in the UK – but they have refused to tell him.
He also wants the States to look at incentives and products – such as the ISA (Individual Savings Account) schemes in the UK – to encourage saving for retirement.
Speaking at the quarterly meeting of the Personal Finance Society on Friday, the Senator said States actuaries had calculated the deficit ‘in their own little way’, whereas he wanted to know the figures according to the FRS 17 standard, which requires the pensions scheme liabilities to be measured and analysed using approved methods.
‘I will have to put a proposition in to get them to tell me what the deficits really are.
But I’ve learnt that if I ask a written question, I get a reply to another question entirely, so I will have to work out how to ask so that I get the right answer,’ he said.
