I was at my daughter’s birthday party last Sunday afternoon doing that bit where you hang around while all the kids have fun.

Little did I realise that this would be the start of a productive afternoon’s discussion on pensions.

One of the fathers who I do not get to see very often came over to me and passed me a copy of a national newspaper article outlining the three options for pension reform.

“Isn’t it great,” he said. “We are going to get a pension that is like an ISA. I am sure you are up-to-date on this, but just in case here is the article.”

I took it and asked him if he was in favour of such reform. “ISAs are simple to understand and pensions are complex, so yes I suppose I am,” he replied.

My heart sank a little bit but by now I was sort of enjoying the chase. “Let’s go over some of the issues,” I suggested.

“If I asked you would you like a simple ISA-like pension or a complicated pension-like pension, what would you prefer?”

The answer was as expected. “The simple one, obviously.”

“So what if I changed the question a bit. Would you like a simple ISA-like pension that was not as much value to you as a complicated pension-like pension? What would your answer be?”

There was the sound of the appropriate coinage falling, “Ah I see what you mean!”

I explained a few of the issues – the tax treatment of ISAs being TEE, pension being EET, the trust in a future government to maintain final E which could be quite a long time in the future.

We discussed that the middle E was also quite important. I also covered the need for greater investment returns for compounding, the confusion and cost of running two systems and a few other bits and pieces.

I then asked where he saw the confusion in pensions – surely you put the money into the pension, invest it and then take it out! Is that not similar to an ISA? (I did add the caveat – “for most people”.)

My final question was one I had no control of but I felt was quite important.

“Do you pay your maximum ISA subscription?” I asked.

“Not always,” was the answer. “Sometimes there are other things to spend the money on!”

I was therefore quite interested to see a headline today in the trade press “Aviva - pensions ISA support halves when tax implication explained”.

Sometimes focusing on one attribute of the issue in question can be wholly misleading!

As I have said before, I do expect reform to pension tax relief but part of that reform must be a consideration of how we encourage people to save or, if they are currently saving, how to encourage them to save more – what incentives work and how do we express them.

The whole episode also taught me that I should widen my repertoire for ad hoc chats at birthday parties!