SWEDEN - The Premium Pension System (PPM) may merge with the Social Insurance Administration (Försäkringskassan), according to one of the architects of Sweden’s pension reform.

The move would come after the publication at the end of last month of report by a committee appointed by the government to look at the PPM’s structure and functioning.

The purpose of the merger is to eliminate duplication of work. “I think it would be a good idea to have one body responsible for the whole system,” Bo Könberg, leader of the liberal group in Parliament and member of the pensions implementation committee, told IPE.

“The new arrangement will be much more efficient.”

The PPM is funded by a compulsory contribution of 2.5% of salary which the beneficiary can chose to invest in any one or combination of around 700 funds. This supplements the main state pension fund.

The report also recommends that the current choice of 700 funds be cut to between 100 and 200 funds. Könberg is less enthusiastic about this idea. “It will be just as difficult to chose among this number,” he said. “If the PPM provides adequate information the 700 funds will be manageable.”

The proposal has just entered a three-month consultation.

Könberg is due to leave parliament at the end of this year. He entered parliament in 1991 as minister for health and social insurance and chair of the national working group on pensions.

He was responsible for a major reform of the pensions system in 1994. In 1995 he became an MP and has been leader of the liberal group since 1998.

Könberg will become governor of the province of Sörmland, just south of Stockholm.