New research from NEST shows around half of the UK largest employers and medium-sized employers have confirmed their provider for auto-enrolment and are expecting pension providers to support them through the process of change.
NEST, the national multi-employer pension scheme, released the first results from research it has carried out among UK employers in order to understand their readiness and plans for automatic enrolment, as well as their attitudes towards the scheme itself.
It showed that more than half (54%) of the UK's largest employers (5000+ workers) say they have already confirmed their provider for automatic enrolment. A further 34% have a 'good idea' of the provision they'll put in place, and only 11% say they're still at an early stage.
With medium-sized employers (1000 to 4999 workers) the figures were more or less the same with around half (48%) having confirmed their provider and a further 35% having a 'good idea' of what they will decide upon.
The majority of all employers say easy day-to-day administration and clear communications are factors that are very important when choosing a pension provider. They also expect the pensions industry to support them through the process of automatic enrolment.
Tim Jones, chief executive at NEST, says: "These results suggest that many employers in the first year of staging are starting to get their plans in place. That's really encouraging – employers really do need to give themselves time to get this right.
"Employers have told us that they expect to get help from their providers and advisers. Providers and advisers obviously have a critical role to play in helping employers to understand what roles different schemes can play and how to implement automatic enrolment to suit the needs of their workers"
Approximately one fifth (21%) of large employers in the private and not-for-profit sectors say they are 'quite likely' or 'very likely' to use NEST for some groups of workers, with around 16% of employers undecided. The majority of these large employers said they would use NEST alongside another scheme.
Jones says: "Large employers who say they are likely to use NEST report that it is likely to be used alongside existing provision. That's one of the roles NEST is intended to play – complementing existing schemes. We are already working closely alongside many of the existing private pension providers and expect that to continue."
The research included interviews with 707 pension decision makers in companies with five or more UK employees.
The first results now released focus primarily on employers in the first six to nine months of staging. The government-backed scheme says it will publish more data from this research at the end of the year.
First Published 18.05.2012
azeevalkink@wilmington.co.uk
