The Shaftesbury Partnership is delighted to announce the evaluation of our Retirement Transition Initiative (RTI) pilot. It finds that RTI participants are more than twice as likely to feel positive about retirement.

‘The weekend was a real trigger for action … I’ve told lots of people how good it was, and now they all want to go!’ – Sue, RTI participant

 ‘We want to move to a position where individuals are able to make informed choices about when they retire…. How fantastic for those people [who have started financial planning after RTI]…. now they know they can do something about it. That’s incredibly strong!’ – Lis Robinson, Head of Fuller Working Lives, Department for Work and Pensions

RTI equips people who are contemplating retirement with the information, networks and resilience they need in order to better navigate the opportunities and challenges of this life transition. It aims to improve the health, wellbeing and economic outcomes of the individual, their employer and their community.

The standard model of the programme is centred around a weekend of workshop sessions delivered to couples to enable joint reflection and planning. Each weekend includes about 30 people who live within the same region and stay overnight at conference facilities, to encourage the establishment of social support networks.

Our 2015 pilot, funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Jaguar Land Rover, tested the programme with 7 cohorts in 3 locations. The programme was delivered in Coventry, Southampton and Wigan to 200 participants. Demand was high, with waiting lists forming for some of the cohorts.

The evaluation report, produced by Intentionality CIC, shows very positive results:

• 75% of participants felt that the content of the course had met their needs well
• 63% have now started financial planning
• 68% of respondents agreed that they felt positive about retirement (more than twice as many as those in the non-RTI comparator group)

You can read a summary of the evaluation report here

If you would like a copy of the full 43-page evaluation report, please contact us