Otto Thoresen has, perhaps, the toughest job in British financial services. The Scottish chief executive of insurer Aegon UK has been asked by the Government to convince the young and impoverished that pennies spent down the pub would be better off in savings. His role is to crowbar financial planning into the public consciousness.

It won't be easy, but it's a message that is getting ever more urgent. In its financial capability report last year, the Financial Services Authority noted: "Nearly half of all adults have no savings at all… two million households are constantly struggling to keep up with their commitments… the under-40s are less capable than their elders (especially the 18-30 age group)… [and] unless action is taken, the population will store up problems for the future."

Record levels of personal debt, currently averaging £9,000 per household excluding the mortgage, and personal insolvencies, which topped the 100,000 mark for the first time last year, simply underline the problem. "There is a syndrome of hoping this will just go away," Thoresen muses.

Of course, it won't. Which is why the Government is co-ordinating efforts to make the public more financially savvy. It started by reforming the pension system so employees are automatically enrolled on company schemes. Thoresen has been tasked with the next step – designing a nationwide service to offer the public free, basic and impartial financial advice. He publishes his interim report today.

It doesn't take long to work out why the 51-year-old son of a Norwegian merchant navy captain was chosen for the job. His open and straightforward manner gives him a common touch and he brims with energy. "This business is not about pushing bits of paper around, it can change people's lives," he says. "If you get people thinking like that you can open a whole new level of engagement."

Numbers are not the easiest of concepts to "engage" with. They are more likely to turn people off than inspire them. But Thoresen, a qualified actuary, is passionate about their power. As a student, he discovered a "love of pure mathematics" that lingers today. "It is close to art… I still find maths fascinating," he says, though the delights of Sudoku bore him.

But it's Thoresen's other talents that have propelled him to the top of one of the UK's 10 largest insurers and a Government review. Early on in his career, while working for the marketing department at Scottish Equitable before it was bought by Aegon in 1994, he unearthed "an ability to write and get enthusiastic about what we do". "I have traded on it ever since. That's why I got involved in the Treasury piece," he says.

Enthusiasm is a quality he believes is vital to everyday success, recently spreading the word to students at his alma mater, Buckie High School. "I was told I had five minutes to say something useful. So I told them I had flown to Mumbai alongside [Celebrity Big Brother winner] Shilpa Shetty," he says. "That got their attention. But the one thing of use I said was that what makes a difference to an employer is attitude. Eye contact and level of enthusiasm."

Thoresen will need every ounce of that enthusiasm to engage with his new audience. "The concept of the service is to make people feel more comfortable dealing with financial issues," he says, stressing that all levels of society are deficient in their financial planning and stand to benefit from his efforts.

"We hope to provide a touchpoint for people to deal with saving for retirement and getting them more in control of their finances. There are a lot of good agencies out there for crisis management but there is nothing that is preventative."

His taskforce will publish guiding principles in today's interim report, before delivering a final proposal early next year, and is expected to suggest a range of delivery methods – the internet and telephone as well as face-to-face, possibly through outlets at the Citizens Advice Bureau, Post Office or other community hubs. He will also be careful not to duplicate the work done by crisis management agencies such as the National Debtline.

Financing will be key to its impartiality – so it will be funded equally by the Government and the financial services industry. Early estimates of £50m annual running costs may be revised upward depending on the scale of the project.

Thoresen has an even bigger goal, though. "The industry has to step up to the challenge too," he says. "The biggest challenge for us long term is to engage with a younger generation of savers. We need products that are easier to understand. So far, the industry has been reluctant to focus on the customer. Products were driven by actuarial capability rather than consumer needs, which causes barriers."


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