One of the two fore-runners of the OPA, COPAS, was established in 1993 when the vulnerability of the assets of occupational pension funds was highlighted by a number of major court cases, amongst which were:

The Mirror Group - then owned by Robert Maxwell
Imperial Tobacco
Lucas

The government acted by setting up the Goode committee to which COPAS submitted evidence before the 1995 Pensions Act was passed. However there were many features of the Act which our members regarded as unsatisfactory and therefore COPAS continued to campaign for further reforms. For example, during the late 90s problems became evident over the fair custody and the distribution of fund surpluses.

In 1999 the National Federation of Post Office & BT Pensioners formed the Alliance of Occupational Pensioners (AoP) together with some of the other pensioner associations from the former public sector industries. This had very similar aims and quickly established itself as an effective campaigning group.

The main difference between these two organisations was that the AoP represented a small number of very large associations whereas COPAS largely represented a much larger number of smaller associations. Given that the aims of the two groups were very similar, it was felt that it would be much more effective to present the legislators with a considerably larger single organisation speaking with one voice. Thus in October 2003, a merger was agreed and the Occupational Pensioners' Alliance was formed.

The need for an organisation such as the OPA has never been greater - occupational pension schemes are under attack from many quarters - see "More" on the right.

More:

The Scope & Objectives of the OPA

Problems of Pension Schemes

The Decline of Occupational Pension Schemes

Why Pensioners' Associations are needed

Advice on the formation of a Pensioners Association

Selected Statistics on Occupational Pension Schemes

A Brief History of Pensions