Iain Duncan Smith appointed head of DWP

Former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith has been appointed secretary of state for Work and Pensions.

Independent pensions expert Ros Altmann (pictured) praised Duncan Smith's work around welfare and the benefits system but said he lacked experience of dealing with pensions issues.

‘I think he’ll be good for work but I’m not sure how good he is for pensions,' she said. 'His Centre for Social Justice has done lots of interesting work on sorting out the welfare system and the complexities of the benefit system. I’m not sure how much he’s engaged with anything other than the state pension system,’ she said.

‘The crisis we’ve got is that people aren’t saving enough at the moment and the state pension disincentiveses saving. I may be being unfair, but I haven’t seen a lot of what he has done on encouraging saving and sorting out some of the complexities of the pension system. 

Altmann said a lot of the new coalition's work on pensions would depend on who is appointed pensions minister.

'If we have some expertise at pensions level I guess that will be good,’ she said. ‘Pensions are so complex and we need to get this sorted. There are people like Philip Hammond who’ve done it before who has understanding of the private sector and savings.’