The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has released its latest review of automatic enrolment.

The Automatic Enrolment Evaluation Report 2016 showed that up to the end of October 2016, more than 6.87 million workers have been automatically enrolled by 293,868 employers, with 265,000 workers having been re-enrolled by 4,713 employers.

It says the latest evidence shows auto-enrolment "remains on track" with the millions more employees enrolled and encouraging evidence of the significant effect the policy is having on private pension saving in the UK.

Joanne Segars, chief executive of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, said its own report Retirement Income Adequacy: Generation by Generation, also highlighted the contribution auto-enrolment is making to the future.

She said: "The 2017 review is an opportunity for the Government to set a direction for the next decade of automatic enrolment and this should include the creation of an independent commission to advise on how and when to increase contributions in future."

Segars emphasised the need to focus on the current challenge of completing the full roll-out: "We need to focus on bringing hundreds of thousands of small employers and millions more savers into workplace pensions, and making sure opt-out rates don't increase as contribution rates rise to 8%."

Criticising the report, Now: Pensions CEO Morten Nilsson said it ignored the "elephant in the room" of minimum contributions.

He said: "Its disappointing the review is ignoring this crucial question – eight years on from the Pensions Bill, which brought auto-enrolment into being, savers are still only contributing 2% of qualifying earnings and it will be 11 years from 2008 when savers begin to contribute 8%."

Nilsson added that it was important to learn that people are likely to contribute the minimum set by the Government.

"The Government should be using this as a road map for increasing contributions to a point where people will be able to enjoy a decent standard of living in retirement," he said.

"The longer we ignore this issue, the larger the problem will be."

First published 15.12.2016

Lindsay.sharman@wilmingtonplc.com