Workers warming to automatic enrolment
25 August 2014
We are grateful to Deloittes for this report:
Ministers continue to promote their automatic enrolment scheme, with an advertising campaign featuring Dragons’ Den investor Theo Paphitis and Apprentice star Karren Brady aiming to increase people’s awareness of it. On the back of these efforts, the Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has revealed that nearly three quarters of working-age adults now know about auto-enrolment.
An Ipsos MORI survey conducted on behalf of the department also shows that 78% of Britons welcome the fact that employers are legally required to commit to auto-enrolment.
Earlier this month, separate research indicated that four million people have been placed in workplace pension schemes since auto-enrolment was officially launched in the autumn of 2012.
The auto-enrolment programme ultimately aims to ensure that all employers are providing their staff members with occupational pension schemes. It automatically places qualifying individuals in workplace schemes, forcing them to actively opt out if they do not want to make retirement savings. All of the country’s employers will be required to offer pension provisions under the terms of the programme by the year 2018.
Pointing to a possible shift in people’s attitudes, nearly half of those questioned for the DWP survey said they regard the process of pension saving as being normal. Steve Webb, the UK’s Pensions Minister, said some “fantastic” findings have emerged from the study.
But he added: “We still have a mountain to climb. Recent DWP research found that close to half of working-age people are failing to save enough to maintain their standard of living into old age, so there is more to do.” Mr Webb said the Government and employers need to be “evangelical” when it comes to raising awareness of auto-enrolment. According to the Coalition, the DWP’s We’re All In advertising scheme has encouraged three in 10 people to take action by focusing on the importance of pension saving.