UK. Watchdog hails success of auto-enrolment pensions
Regulators and financial experts are hailing a rare public policy success after figures on Britain’s “auto-enrolment” scheme revealed 10 million more people are now saving, with record amounts going into pensions.
British workers saved £90.4bn into their pension schemes in 2018, according to the Pensions Regulator – £7bn more than the year before. Behind the surge in saving is auto-enrolment, the scheme set up by the government in 2012 to make sure everyone, whether they work for a supermarket or a corner shop, has a private pension to add to their state pension.
In its first year, around 1 million workers from big companies were brought into the scheme, and there were fears that as smaller workplaces were drawn into the net, more and more people would opt out.
But the pensions regulator said the numbers enrolled rose to 6.2 million in 2016 and had now hit 10 million. “Since 2012 there has been a significant increase of 8 million to 18.7 million eligible employees participating in a workplace pension (87%) in 2018, showing the positive impact of the workplace pension reforms to date.”
Less than half of private sector workers had a pension in 2012, but the figure has now reached 85%.
Read more @The Guardian
