Milestone or millstone? How employers are risking pension problems
The introduction of automatic enrolment into workplace pensions next year has been widely regarded as one of the biggest pension reforms of the post-war era.
The announcement last year of the NEST (National Employment Savings Trust) brand was heralded as a “milestone along the way to achieving one of the biggest social reforms of our generation” and a change which will help “transform attitudes to saving”.
So there will be some consternation at the findings of the latest annual DC pensions survey from our client Punter Southall, which reveal that although all responding employers were aware of the changes, more than two-thirds of them had done nothing yet to prepare. What’s more, while three-quarters of employers expected their existing DC pension scheme to meet the requirements of the new regime, less than a third thought their current schemes were compliant.
Some of this could be down to employers waiting for the final regulatory details to be put in place. But if employers don’t pull their collective fingers out, is there a danger that before long we’ll be reminding ourselves of the old adage, “Fail to prepare; prepare to fail”?