The government faces significant challenges in ensuring that people have adequate incomes in retirement. People are living longer and fewer have been saving into workplace pension schemes than in the past. Automatic enrolment aims to reverse the long-term decline in the number of people saving into workplace pensions.
The Department for Work and Pensions, The Pensions Regulator and The National Employment Savings Trust have worked together to introduce the automatic enrolment programme, doing so successfully for large and medium-sized employers who account for around 20 million workers. They now face a greater challenge as 1.8 million smaller employers are required to enrol their workers by 2018.
Programme spending is so far on track and opt-out rates have been lower than expected at between 8% and 14%. This inquiry looks at the risks of registering smaller employers and how DWP ensures that more widespread enrolment translates into higher retirement incomes.