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NEST's membership increases

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

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Over 300 large employers have signed up to the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), the organisation has announced.

NEST now has over 100,000 participating members as it announced at an event for employers and advisers that 26 more employers will be using it for auto-enrolment.

To help employers to navigate their way through auto-enrolment, NEST will also be launching a website on 6 May.

The 26 companies, which have recently signed up to NEST include the University of Manchester, the retailer H & M, the pub chain Greene King and the publisher The Random House Group.

NEST chief executive Tim Jones said: "Automatic enrolment is now in full swing and NEST is playing a critical role for many employers."

He added: "We've been working hard on our services, systems and support for employers, for example on worker communications, file checking tools, implementation and administration processes.

"We will be catering for a broad range of employers, from large to small, across a wide range of sectors. Accordingly, we are continually evolving our services to meet the needs of all the employers we are working with."

As auto-enrolment progresses, NEST said that the number of organisations affected will increase while the size of their workforce will decrease, and so it has adapted its online guides to accommodate this shift, designed to help businesses of all sizes and their advisers.

The new online help includes help and guidance from the employer document library, information on the key tasks of assessment, enrolment and online set-up of NEST and high-level information on employer duties.

Jones said: "Automatic enrolment is bringing big changes. We want to help make it straightforward whenever we can, and also to work closely with third parties."

He added: "We are ready for the variety and number of businesses we think are headed our way, and will continue to develop our tools and services to reflect employers' needs and the needs of those that they turn to for help."

First published 01.05.2013

monique_simpson@wilmington.co.uk