Speaking at the Corporate Adviser summit, Martin said there the ongoing debate between HR and finance directors as to how much they wanted to communicate auto enrolment was set to intensify. Pensions managers were keen to maximise take up, whereas finance directors were keen to minimise cost and administrative hassle, he said. He said some employers wanted to take a softly, softly approach to auto enrolment, taking the view that “as long as the company is not giving workers money not to join, it ’s OK.”
He also argued that for DC pensions to succeed in the UK, they needed scale, higher contributions and education of the public about the need to save, starting at primary school.
Martin said: “There are 90,000 DC schemes in the UK with less than two members. We need to supersize pensions as in Australia, the Netherlands and Chile to gain economies of scale, good independent governance, better communications and simple investment options.”
He said DHL had increase uptake of its DC scheme from 20 per cent to 30 per cent, using pensions advocates in the workplace and that it would not be using Nest because the scheme’s current charges, at 0.125 per cent AMC and £30 admin fee, paid by the employer, were lower than Nest.
