Over 300 employers have signed up to use the pension scheme established by government to help deliver auto-enrolment, it was revealed yesterday.
The National Employment Savings Trust was established to offer a low-cost, one-size-fits-all scheme for employers who are required to automatically sign up their workers into a workplace pension.
NEST chief executive Tim Jones yesterday named 26 employers who were now working with the scheme, taking the total of those involved so far to over 300. The number of workers saving into the NEST scheme is now at over 100,000.
Jones said this showed NEST was playing a 'critical' role in auto-enrolment. 'We've been working hard on our services, systems and support for employers, for example on worker communications, file-checking tools, implementation and administration processes.
'We will be catering for a broad range of employers, from large to small, across a wide range of sectors. Accordingly, we are continually evolving our services to meet the needs of all the employers we are working with.'
Among the employers named yesterday are estate agents Countrywide, brewer Greene King, shoe retailers Foot Locker and three universities - Glasgow, Manchester and Southampton.
The list also includes clothing retailer H&M, shoe repairer Timpson, office services company PHS Group and publisher Random House.
The first official figures published by The Pensions Regulator last month revealed that, as of the end of March, 84 employers had confirmed they had met their auto-enrolment duties by registering with the regulator. Between them they had automatically signed up over 300,000 workers into a pension scheme.
With the staged approach being taken to introducing auto-enrolment, NEST is expected to play an increasingly significant role as smaller firms become subject to the requirement to sign their workers up to a scheme.