ORC saves itself

The Office of the Retirement Commissioner may have lost a significant amount of funding over the past year, but that's not stopping it promoting the savings message.

Retirement Commissioner Colin Blair says the office is working on developing some tools which will help people decide where to put their money.

In the budget the Government cut the office's public education budget down to $1.5 million, and the private sector, which used to provide $1 million annually, no longer gives any funding to the office. (See graph).

The office realised last year that it was going to lose some of its Government funding so put aside some of its budget to use in the current financial year.

"If we had spent last year's allocation we would have been in a real bind," Blair says.

Blair says the office will be putting more emphasis on financial literacy this year, as opposed to pushing the saving for your retirement message.

"The tools are designed to help people make decision about savings vehicles," he says.

The idea is that people get to better understand the risk/return trade-off, plus they will help people evaluate the risk of high returning investments.

The office will continue to sponsor the financial literacy programme that is run by the Enterprise New Zealand Trust and taught in schools.

The programme is aimed at senior secondary school pupils and teaches 10 modules on topics of lifetime financial management, including budgeting, savings and long-term financial planning. It is taught to about 6500 of the 50,000 children who leave school each year.

Blair says he would like the office to be better funded and he isn't asking for an open cheque book.

"If our budget was doubled I would be very happy about that," he says.

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