Pensions body on track to support employer auto-enrolment reforms
The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) has hit back at suggestions that it is struggling to attract members.
The pensions body, which was set up to help employers meet their auto-enrolment duties, has more than doubled its membership since April to 210,000 sign ups.
Earlier this month, pension sector critics were quick to note that “only” 100,000 savers had signed up when initial figures were released six months after the first phase of pension auto-enrolment began in October 2012.
However, Tim Jones, chief executive of NEST, said: “NEST is playing a critical role in ensuring that automatic enrolment is a success, and it is wrong to suggest that NEST isn’t attracting members. Our membership figures and assets under management are increasing rapidly. Since April, when we last reported membership figures of 100,000, the number of members in NEST has more than doubled to 210,000 and assets under management have increased to around £8million.”
Jones explained that NEST’s estimated sign up numbers of 250,000 by March 2013 had “not allowed for postponement”.
“The actual number of members in NEST at the end of March 2013 reflected that most employers used their postponement period (three months), so variation in the figures is primarily about timing. We remain on track to have between two and five million members by the end of staging,” he said.
Jones reiterated that NEST’s role in the government’s workplace pension reforms is to complement other providers rather than replace them.
“If private sector providers can offer access to low charge, quality schemes to wider sections of the workforce that’s a good thing,” he said. “The existence of other low cost providers in the market is demonstrative of the success of the policy and specifically of the impact that NEST is having.”