Most employers who don't already have a pension scheme have to offer access to them, although they are fully portable - ie they belong to the individual investor and move with them from job to job, rather than the individual having to be a member of each company's group pension scheme.

You can stop and start payments without penalty, and continue to make contributions while you are not working. Stakeholder pensions can also be transferred from one provider to another at any time without charge, and plan holders can take a career break of up to five years and continue paying into their stakeholder plans on the basis of their former earnings.

They are low cost with no start up charge and annual management fees be 'capped' at 1 per cent. Minimum contributions are also lower than most standard personal pensions, set at £20 for lump sum as well as monthly savings, and employees are eligible to join employer sponsored stakeholder schemes after only three months in a job.

You can save the higher of £3,600 a year or 100 per cent of your UK earnings into your stakeholder pension. You get tax relief on contributions of up to 100 per cent of your earnings each year, subject to an upper 'Annual Allowance' (£215,000 for the 2006-2007 tax year).

In practice, this means that for every £78 you pay into your pension, you end up with £100 in your pension pot. If you're a higher rate taxpayer you can claim the extra tax back. Savings above the Annual Allowance will be subject to a tax charge.

Stakeholder plans can also be set up on behalf of children and non-working spouses. Individuals can only have one stakeholder plan, but there are no restrictions on who can pay into a stakeholder pension - for example, husbands can contribute to their wife's plan, grandparents to their grandchildren's and so on.

Stakeholder pensions can be used to 'contract out' of the state second pension scheme, in the same way as a personal pension.

Planholders can retire and receive their benefits at any time between 50 and 75 and 25 per cent of the proceeds can be taken as a tax free lump sum, as with a personal pension.

Find out how your pension is performing.