On Monday 25 March, we hosted an evening reception in Westminster to celebrate compelling evidence from Nest Insight’s workplace savings research trials.
Our research trials found that savings participation increased dramatically when using the opt-out approach to payroll-linked saving, bringing it much more in line with the proportion of employees who say they want and need to save – somewhere between 40% and 70%, depending on the workplace context and provider. This could have wide impact. Not only boosting financial resilience and supporting mental health, productivity and social mobility, but also play an important role in the future evolution of workplace pensions auto enrolment. Read the latest findings from our report: Opt-out autosave at work
This event brought together policymakers, senior industry figures, employers, think tanks, academics, partners and supporters to focus on the powerful potential of the opt-out payroll saving model to support millions more people in the UK to get saving.
Featuring speeches from supportive voices, including:
- Bim Afolami MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury
- Tulip Siddiq MP, Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury
- Oliver Morley CBE, Chief Executive Officer of Money and Pensions Service
- Helen Dean CBE, Chief Executive Officer of Nest Corporation
- Claire Costello, Chief People and Inclusion Officer at the Co-op
- Rob O’Carroll, Deputy Director of Automatic Enrolment and Defined Contribution Pensions Policy at the Department for Work and Pensions
- Antony Manchester, Co-Head of EMEA Government Affairs and Public Policy at BlackRock
- Will Sandbrook, Managing Director of Nest Insight
Claire Costello, Chief People and Inclusion Officer at the Co-op, spoke about the high participation rates and the positive feedback about opt-out auto enrolment savings for people working in Co-op stores. While other employers in the room, such as SUEZ, also saw huge benefits for their workforce.
Both the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and the Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury were present on the night to lend their voices to the support in the room. And we’re grateful for their enthusiastic support of the programme as well as their commitment to building financial resilience through initiatives like our opt-out payroll savings trial.
We have been thrilled at the cross-party and cross-government support for scaling the opt-out payroll saving approach in more workplaces. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury and the Minster for Pensions have previously called together experts involved in Nest Insight’s work for roundtables to understand what would be involved. And the Labour party’s Financial Services Review, commits that a Labour government would work with the sector to pilot innovative workplace savings approaches like those trialled by Nest Insight and review the legislative and regulatory barriers to enabling a more widespread roll out: Financial Growth.
We’d like to say a big thank you to our speakers, to the BlackRock Foundation, the Money and Pensions Service, and JPMorgan Chase Foundation for supporting our emergency savings research programme, and to all of the employers, providers and research partners that have worked with us to make our real-world trials a reality.
