A poll about workplace pensions, conducted by YouGov in September 2016, has interesting findings for everyone connected with and concerned about pensions.
When asked about the type of pension held, 36% of employees said that their pension was created under auto-enrolment, a recent government initiative. Will Wynne, co-founder of Smart Pension, who commissioned the research commented that with one in three of the workforce having this type of pension, auto-enrolment was clearly gaining momentum. He said that auto-enrolment “looks set to hit targets over the next two years when 1.8m small and micro firms have staged.”
The poll also found that 6% of respondents had no idea what type of pension they held and 17% said they didn’t have any kind of pension. A further 17% had a standard personal pension (SPP), 8% had a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) and 7% had a stakeholder pension.
The government’s forecast of a 15% opt-out rate overall appeared to have been exceeded with almost one in five (19%) of the British workforce indicating they either had or would be opting out of their workplace scheme. However, the Government’s own figures suggest that the figure is much lower, currently about 10%.
The poll asked why employees were opting out. Just over 25% said they didn’t have sufficient money to opt in while 17% indicated they would rather spend their money in different ways and ignore pension provision for the time being.
Almost half the sample (48%) admitted that saving for their old age was a subject they didn’t want to think about at all, even though many of them could afford to put money into a pension scheme.
A separate poll about auto-enrolment was held with employers which reported that 55% considered auto-enrolment was a burden and 38% said it was unfair. However, when asked about plans for growth, 72% of employers felt that auto-enrolment would not hold back their plans for future investment.
PrimoPayroll is the UK’s first fully automatic auto-enrolment payroll system and has joined with Smart Pensions to make auto-enrolment compliance and day-to-day management even easier for companies, payroll bureaus and accountants. Contact us for more information.
