The UK savings crisis can be partly attributed to the lack of any government-led savings policy, a report by the Institute of Directors (IoD) argues.
The IoD policy paper, Roadmap for Retirement Reform 2012, said it is "rather suprising" there is no policy given there appears to be consensus that Britain's savings culture need to change.
"If we agree that, over time, we need to change the nation's culture and habits away from instant gratification towards saving, to achieve a society based on assets rather than debt, then it is rather surprising that there is something missing today from government to support that," the report reads. "There is no savings policy".
Instead, the IoD paper argues, there have been a "series of initiatives and interventions" in recent years, although it said auto-enrolment could be described as "something of a policy".
"Only recently, by marrying up the Junior ISA and the ISA in complementary structures, have we seen co-ordination of savings architectures from childhood into adulthood," the paper states.
"But the need here is actually to better support retirement saving by getting more saving throughout life.
"This requires a holistic approach, rather than a sub-divided approach based on need or life stage, or a misguided wish to 'tinker'."
The IoD paper argues a possible policy objective could be 'to move UK society to an asset-based one over the next ten years'.
It said it would take time for people to pay down debt to a point where spare income could be released for saving, and acknowledged that, for some, it will "never be possible to save anything other than small amounts, or anything at all".
But it said this did not mean a joined-up savings policy would be void.
