THE name Turner has become inextricably linked with controversy through the contemporary art award and now through the Turner report. This investigation, headed by Adair Turner is a black-and-white representation of the dire state of retirement saving in Britain.

This Brit Art work is more shocking than anything to be exhibited in the Turner Prize show at Tate Britain next week. Turner, a former CBI Director- General, depicts a nation hiding from the terrible truth of its low provision and a blundering Government guilty of ill-thought out initiatives and worse.

Usually such reports into long-term savings cause a brief furore and then vanish from view into private collections — the Times Money bookshelf contains several examples. But Turner’s conclusions seem already to be having an impact. Alan Johnson, the newish Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is indicating his support for a citizen’s pension, to replace the basic state pension. This would provide a modest standard of living; anyone who wanted more creature comforts would have to curb their current lifestyle and start saving.

Such a reform would sweep away the pension credit, the means-tested state pension top-up, with its manifold imperfections. Mr Johnson’s words show that he is grasping the extent of the retirement problems facing the nation, listening to the consensus among pension professionals and, most importantly, is not afraid to question policies devised by Gordon Brown, the architect of the pension credit and much other misguided meddling.

Any changes to the state pension scheme would be made after the general election, when Turner will publish his recommendations. If he wants to keep his friends and not be reviled in public, he will not, I think, be suggesting compulsory contributions, because this could spell the end of tax reliefs that are an incentive to invest.

The delay in the publication of the recommendations does not absolve anyone who is not saving now from the need to act. A person who has acquisitive and hedonistic habits today should realise that they will wish to continue in this vein for ever after and plan accordingly.

Turner gives warning against relying entirely on property to fund retirement: you need lots of different pots. If you are unable to contemplate anything more complicated, put something aside each month in a bank or building society regular savings scheme. (Abbey now pays 7 per cent to all holders of regular savings accounts, while Halifax offers the same rate to new customers).

A lack of confidence may be holding you back from any sort of long-term saving. But distrust is the right mindset with which to approach any financial deal; it means you ask better questions about charges and potential payouts.

Remember that membership of a company scheme is no longer a guarantee of ease in your old age, especially if you are a member of a defined contribution (DC) scheme. DC schemes give payouts based on investment performance, unlike defined benefit schemes (fast disappearing for ordinary employees, but not for executives), which are linked to salaries.

If the Turner report has made it clear that ignorance about such matters is no longer an option, then it will have served its purpose.

THE decision to assume responsibility for your own pension does not mean that you should be any less resentful about the various forces that have reduced the value of your savings. Take, for example, the removal of the dividend tax credit, which deprives all our pension funds of £5 billion of income every year.

Of course, the Government disputes this figure, as a Times Money reader who complained about this theft discovered. He received a reply from the Inland Revenue which said that the lost tax credits had been made up in other ways that are not “readily quantifiable” — an extraordinary assertion, as the cash raised from all tax changes is carefully calculated. Later in the letter, a masterpiece of Whitehall casuistry, the Revenue puts a figure of £3 billion a year, rather than £5 billion, on the damage wreaked on our pensions. Our reader was not taken in by this attempt to reduce the Government’s role in the worst blow that has befallen our pensions, and neither should you be.

ONLY fools used to be soon parted from their money, but nowadays clever cyberspace fraudsters seem able to play their tricks upon the prudent.

“Phishing” e-mails, which seek to discover your banking or credit card details so as to cast a line into your account, grow daily more authentic-looking, with identical copies of bank logos. Beware, in particular, an e-mail purporting to come from Visa and asking you to give your card number so that you can be protected from fraud. Its sender gives his name as Barry K Downey, sounding like a fresh-faced American with your best interests at heart. If only that were so.