Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps have been taken to make contact with people who had previously been enrolled automatically into a workplace pension scheme since 2012 but have since withdrawn from it.

Although employers must automatically enrol their eligible workers into a workplace pension scheme, individuals who genuinely believe it is not in their best interests to save in their current circumstances can opt-out within one month of being enrolled. However, the numbers of people opting-out have been much lower than expected and less than one in ten employees who have been automatically enrolled have chosen not to continue to save through automatic enrolment. People can also chose to cease saving at any time if they feel that this is right in their circumstances.

The Department has commissioned research to monitor the extent of opt-out and cessation as part of its biennial Employers’ Pension Provision survey. The findings from the latest survey (2015) are available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employers-pension-provision-survey-2015.

Alongside this monitoring, the Department has commissioned more in-depth research to explore the reasons why some employees have chosen to stop saving. The findings are available in the report “Automatic enrolment: qualitative research with employers staging in 2014” which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/automatic-enrolment-qualitative-research-with-employers-staging-in-2014.

It is important that we do not lose touch with those who have opted-out of automatic enrolment and as such, employers are required to re-enrol all eligible workers, including those who chose to opt-out every three years. This prompts individuals to regularly reconsider their saving arrangements and reminds employers of their on-going automatic enrolment duties to their staff. This process has already started amongst the largest employers and The Pensions Regulator publishes monthly updates on the numbers of employees being re-enrolled in its Declaration of Compliance Monthly Report. The latest figures are available online at http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/automatic-enrolment-declaration-of-compliance-monthly-report.pdf