Auto Enrolment, where are we now?

By March this year, 29 months in, over 5,200,000 works have been successfully automatically enrolled. A vast improvement and a turning around of the decade-long decline in pension provision, with 59% of all employees now active members of a pension compared with 47% in 2012.

Here’s the rub. 

It is estimated that around 9,000,000 workers will be enrolled by February 2018. 

The first 5,200,000 workers have come from around 46,000 employers, meaning the average company to stage so far has 113 staff. 

With an estimated 3,800,000 workers to go (split across roughly 1,500,000 employers) the average staff number drops down to 2.5.

It is simply a different world. 

The pension regulator has revealed they have had to use their formal powers 2,169 times so far to push employers to fulfil their responsibilities. 

So, around 5% of large employers haven’t managed to get it right straight off the bat. A large employer will have specialist staff in finance, HR, accounting and so forth, supporting their decision making, and implementation. 

A smaller firm is unlikely to. 

This is why the market needs to evolve to support the smaller employer. 

At Parsonage we think a smaller employer would be looking for:

  • Easy set-up

  • Compliance

  • Automated and clear communications to staff

  • Low admin

  • Online submissions 

  • Good fund management

  • Low cost

Our solution offers all the above and the chance to give your staff a little bit extra with Perkbox.

Duncan Farrar