April 2025 | Fair Point | abrdn Financial Fairness Newsletter

Do you have a funding proposal you’d like to discuss with us?

We’re experimenting with running a virtual open day next month – if that sounds like it might be useful for you, please see the events section below for more details. But before we get into that, here’s what we have published in April.

Ahead of the conclusion of the Pensions Review in July, we have published two reports on the topic:

How aware are people of next year’s state pension age increase?

Managing defined contribution pension wealth through retirement

All reports from the Pensions Review (led by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in partnership with the Trust) are available here.

What should we learn from tax credits?

On 5th April 2025, the last tax credit payments were made, bringing to an end a policy that had a major impact on the UK social security system. While tax credits have spent a long time dying – gradually being replaced by Universal Credit (UC) for over more than a decade – their final demise marks a moment when it is worth reflecting on what we learned from the tax credit era.

Our Policy Adviser, Donald Hirsch worked on tax credits when they were first developed. His latest paper outlines the lessons policymakers working on Universal Credit today can learn.

Read it here

One in four renters struggles to retrieve full deposit after tenancy

New research from Generation Rent on tenancy deposit schemes finds that while it is now a legal requirement for deposits to be protected, a minority of landlords and agents continue to flout the law. Even where deposits are protected, tenants can often experience long waits for the return of their money, or face claims upon it from landlords that they feel are unreasonable.

Read more

Upcoming event:

Do you have a funding proposal you’d like to discuss?

We are trialling a day of short virtual meetings to discuss funding proposal ideas with prospective grant applicants. A limited number of slots to speak to a grant officer online via Teams or telephone will be available on 12^th May 2025 between 11am and 4pm. If you have a developed proposal idea that closely aligns with our funding priorities and would like to discuss this with a member of the grants team ahead of our 3^rd June 2025 deadline, you are  welcome to request a call with us.

Please email enquiries@financialfairness.org.uk with a short summary of your idea (50 words maximum) by 1pm on Monday 5^th May. We will confirm if you have been allocated a slot, based on your idea outline and our availability, by 8^th May. We encourage you to read our Funding Guidelines to ensure your organisation and proposal  meets our eligibility criteria and funding priorities. Due to limited capacity, we will be unable to offer calls once the slots are full but will operate a waiting list.