        |
| The
first choice for people
in pensions |
| ‘Revolving
door’ effect of Personal Accounts revealed
By Sophie Baker |
| The
introduction of auto-enrolment may just prove to be the push companies
need to increase their pension scheme membership, with over 40 per
cent of respondents to Capita Hartshead’s sixteenth Annual
Pensions Administration Survey saying they plan to auto-enrol
all employees into their company scheme before 2012. However, just 25 per cent believe the launch of Personal Accounts will lead to an increase in their scheme membership – it was found that there is a widely held view that a number of employees will opt out, leading to what Capita Hartshead has labelled a ‘revolving door’ membership. “It is extremely worrying that, when the Government is promoting universal pension provision, a large chunk of people who are ‘auto-enrolled’ are expected to opt straight back out again,” commented Louise Harris, head of pension communications at Capita Hartshead. “This underlines the importance of financial education and effective member communication. We need to get back to basics, to help raise levels of financial literacy, to promote the value of pension scheme membership, even when times are hard and to convert the currently ‘unpensioned’ into fully engaged pension scheme members.” Only four per cent of respondents would completely replace their scheme with Personal Accounts, and 15 per cent might put some of their employees into Personal Accounts. A total of 45 per cent said they do not expect Personal Accounts to affect their existing pension scheme. Fifty-five per cent of respondents said they are likely to review the benefits they offer with their scheme in relation to the introduction of Personal Accounts. The survey covers UK pension schemes with assets over £220bn and over 6.3 million members, in 288 schemes. - Pensions Age May 2009 |
