Support available to those approaching retirement is improving, particularly in master trusts, but a comprehensive framework is still required to ensure all savers get the help they need, according to new research.

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association created such a framework — known as guided retirement income choices — in 2019, which would require schemes and providers both to guide members through retirement, while also ensuring they have access to a full range of retirement solutions.

Its new report, published on June 23, canvassed five large master trusts, two insurers and a number of single trust schemes and consultancy companies, in a bid to ascertain the extent to which the industry has innovated while taking framework into account.

Though the framework itself is not mandatory, the PLSA’s Retirement Choices report found that the industry, and especially master trusts, are already developing equivalently comprehensive solutions, which are increasingly opening up to the wider market.

It noted, however, that most single-employer trusts will not provide these solutions, and the report stressed the need to signpost members to schemes and providers that can support them.

“As the years go by, more and more schemes are seeking to provide such signposting. This is also becoming increasingly important as more people retire with a majority of pension wealth in [defined contribution] savings,” the report explained.

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