Ian Neale insists that in a time of change the pensions industry must work together.

When Bob Dylan wrote the song over fifty years ago, if you had any UK pension at all to look forward to apart from the basic state pension, it was provided byyour employer.

The culture of pensions was conservative, paternalistic, and not even stirred let alone shaken by the songster's warning. There were no preservation rights: if you left your job, the best you could hope for was a frozen pension.

In many cases, lost job meant lost pension.

At first gradually, with contracting-out and then preservation, revaluation in deferment and so on from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, the concept of accrued pension rights developed.

Except for the self-employed and company directors though, pensions were still linked to employment.

Then the 'Big Bang' in1988 set off the first explosion of pension freedom. Anyone could now throw off the shackles of the job-link and have their very own personal pension instead.

A new era was born, in which the cosy relationships between company scheme sponsors, trustees, insurers and advisers were rudely interrupted by a brash new culture.

Salespeople thrived. Pensions became products to be sold to punters who were deliberately incentivised by government bribes to go for it.

Increasingly robust regulation of this new market took a long time to get a grip (some might argue there's still a long way to go).

Ironically one of the keywords of the time was 'polarisation' - a provision of the 1988 Financial Services Act by which a financial adviser had to be either tied to one financial product provider, or completely independent.

It could also be deployed to describe the new box-shifting world of sellers vs. buyers: a marketplace, in fact.

The trouble with this market, however, was the gross asymmetry of information which made it dangerous.

A long series of regulators – FIMBRA, IMRO and LAUTRO; the PIA; the FSA; and latterly since April 2013 the FCA and the PRA – have struggled to curb the predatoryinstincts of salespeople.

The pervading language in this culture has been of manufacturing products, to be distributed and sold.

A fraught tension, especially apparent and unresolved even today, between information, guidance and advice has inhibited efforts to level the playing field (even there, you see combative metaphors).

The direction of travel is now unmistakable though, illustrated by the developing traction gained by the transparency movement.

Having brought a degree of orderand control to the market, the cost of saving in a pension scheme is the new focus of regulators' attention.

It is as if the forces of change have arrived at the bastion of control, the asset management industry. The old saying 'he who manages money, manages all' comes to mind.

This is changing. The disagreeable realisation that those who are in reality service providers are calling the shots is creating a groundswell among those who hand over the money.

The worm is turning, you might say. Investors want to know what's going on. When they meet resistance and obfuscation, suspicion grows.All the momentum at present is with the freedom marchers.

It need not be a battlefield though. We must grow out of the adversarial bipolar culture, in which our legal system is embedded and where the objective is towin against the other.

Indeed, if we genuinely want a future society not redolent of the gated communities and favelas abroad, but in which all feel comfortable interacting with one another, this is a culture shift we must achieve.

Changing the language of discourse would be a good start. When we recognise that in the world of pensions we have a common goal, namely the provision of a long-term saving mechanism which is sustainable for all participants, we can begin to share a common language. Shared control follows.

Trust is, of course, the key.

It takes patience to build and earn; once broken, very difficult to recover.As the "financial services industry" knows only too well.

Now is the hour in which Dylan's song begins to sound prescient, for the times they are indeed a-changing in pensions: the old road is rapidly aging and the order is rapidly fading.

Written by Ian Neale, Director, Aries Insight.