[1][2][3] She became well known in 2002 for leading[4] the "pensionstheft" campaign on behalf of 150,000 workers and their families whose company pensions disappeared when their employers' final salary scheme failed.

Having been assured their pensions were safe and protected by law, these workers from companies such as Allied Steel and Wire, Kalamazoo Computer Group, Dexion, British United Shoe Machinery and UEF suddenly faced losing their whole life savings and her work contributed to establishing the Pension Protection Fund and the Financial Assistance Scheme.

In 2011 her work as the "leading commentator on pensions and other matters affecting the lives of the nation's over 50s" was recognised when she was presented with the Public Affairs Achiever of the Year award.

A full-time job gave her insufficient time with her young family, so in 1993 she became an independent investment consultant with clients including 3i, BT, HM Treasury,[11] Standard Life, the BBC, Sky and Channel 4.

[13] She used her political and press contacts to ensure Pensionstheft Action Group (PAG) appeared regularly in news bulletins and newspapers and devised the banner "Stripped of our pensions".

[citation needed] She produced research papers, background briefings and media articles and gave numerous speeches calling for compensation.

[citation needed] In 2004, threatened by a back bench rebellion, the government introduced legislation to set up the Pension Protection Fund to help schemes which failed in future.

[citation needed] It also offered limited retrospective compensation via a Financial Assistance Scheme, but only for those within three years of retirement and only for a small fraction of their pension while the majority of those affected would get nothing.

[citation needed] This attempt to stave off political opposition did not address the injustices so Altmann helped the victims put together appeals via their MPs to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, who selected four representative complaints and launched a detailed investigation into the role of Government in these pension losses.

With Altmann's help, John Halford of Bindman's and barristers, Dinah Rose QC and Tom Hickman from Blackstone Chambers, agreed to work on a no win no fee basis, and prepared a Judicial Review.

[18] He ruled that rejection of the Ombudsman's report was unlawful and irrational, and described the reasons for the omissions in the DWP leaflets as "minute textual analysis" of a kind that: "can in my view only give comfort to those who consider that it is unwise to believe anything one reads in a government publication.

[22] In February 2008, much later than expected, the Appeal Court delivered its verdict: the government was once again found guilty of misleading the pensioners and the constitutional position of the ombudsman was clarified.

Writing in Glasgow's Herald newspaper, following Altmann's CBE award, Simon Bain explained in summary that a total of 165,000 members and 1,050 schemes were affected with payments by mid-2014 of just under £500m.

[25] Altmann has also supported the 1,500,000 Equitable Life policyholders in their fight for compensation following pension losses blamed on inadequate government regulation of the company.

In 2001, close to collapse and now facing an additional £1.5bn shortfall met by raiding the with-profits fund, it put itself up for sale and stopped taking new business.

Altmann questioned "whether the holes in our regulatory regime are due to a system driven too much by the interests of the industries being regulated, rather than the ordinary people who need to be protected".

She also expressed her "fear that the Government could try to resist any calls for Equitable Life compensation in the same way that it continuously refused to properly remedy the occupational pensions scandal over the last 10 years".

[32] In May 2009, as the Parliamentary Ombudsman issued a "special report on unremedied injustice", Altmann asked "What is the point of Parliament appointing an independent adjudicator if ministers can simply keep on ignoring her decisions?

[33] As the Bank of England pursued its ultra-low interest rate policy and quantitative easing, Altmann continually highlighted the problems this caused to savers in general and pensions and annuities in particular.

I have been calling for years for this to happen and I can only pray that now, regulators will be shamed into taking the action so badly needed in one of the last areas of financial services where rip off charges are still condoned.

"[35] Her statement was followed the next day by a call from Prince Charles for a pensions industry 'fit for 21st Century'[36] The UK budget of March 2014 addressed many of the criticisms,[37] and journalist Rebecca Burn-Callander discussing her CBE award highlighted her contribution to avoiding exploitation of annuities.

She has also highlighted the distributional consequences of the Bank of England's policies, which she believes have redistributed national income and wealth away from the young, the old and the north of the country towards the wealthiest members of society, the south and those with the largest mortgages.

He also highlighted her reputation as an economist completely opposed to the quantitative easing which she saw as reducing pensioners incomes but warned that she was too successful and there was no one of her effectiveness looking after the needs of the young.

She accused him of undermining her work and claimed that he had been looking for a reason to resign for some time in order to damage the party leadership's campaign to stay in Europe.

[55] In February 2016 Altmann noted that pensions providers relied on intermediaries for sales and didn't sell directly to the general public or study their requirements.

[57] In August 2016, Altmann criticised 'irresponsible' comments by the Bank of England's chief economist Andy Haldane that property was better for financing retirement than a pension.

Haldane based his claims on the probability that continuing shortage of housing would cause price increases and stated that he found pensions too complicated to understand.