“ It is great to see the continued successful roll-out of auto-enrolment with the industry coping well with the number of employers who have staged so far. It is also encouraging to see that the number of people opting out is much lower than anticipated resulting in more people saving for their retirement. Our recent research findings from Pensions Through the Ages indicated that 6 in 10 of those in Defined Contribution schemes had been auto-enrolled and this is great given auto-enrolment has only been in place for three years.
But we're not resting on our laurels, as we expect to see a significant increase in the number of employers looking to put an auto-enrolment scheme in place. Advice from financial advisers and other business professionals such as accountants will be in demand as many thousands of employers approach their staging date. Providing a tailored auto-enrolment solution for employers that has minimum impact on the day-to-day running of their business is likely to be more important than a one-size-fits-all self-serve model.
Our concern is that some employers will not be prepared early enough and will struggle to set up their scheme in time. So we believe that it is important for the government to ramp up its advertising campaign ahead of next years' staging date peaks to hopefully limit the number of employers who could face potential fines or other actions by The Pensions Regulator.
The next step will be to help people to understand that they need to save more to ensure that they can maintain the standard of living they want throughout their retirement. ”
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