Auto-Enrolment for Smaller Employers – is it going to get Ugly?

From feedback I have gained from practitioner colleagues involved in A-E, and in own my experience so far, the engagement of smaller employers with the whole A-E process is depressingly low.

With the majority of smaller employers (<30 employees) staging in 2015 and through 2017, (in their many thousands I might add), I have to wonder how much of a mess it’s all going to be: moderate, major, or stupendous?.

Back in 2011, NEST’s intermediary development manager Adrian Sims stated “The challenge is providing appropriate information to make a decision through intermediaries to guide them through that process.” This now seems doubly difficult given the fact that many intermediaries aren’t very interested in offering A-E services any more ( it seems) e.g. due to billing difficulties – employers don’t want to pay and they cannot get paid any other way – all traditional routes (commission, consultancy charges paid via the scheme) being cut off.

What do other group pensions practitioners think?