The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) borrowed an extra £72.5m from the taxpayer in the 2015/2016 tax year, bringing total debt owed to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to £470m (Pensions Advisor).
That was almost half Nest’s total assets under management, which, as of 3 July, stood at £970m.
However, the new debt racked up by the auto-enrollment (AE) scheme was less than the 2014/2015 figure of £87.8m. It was also borrowed at a better rate than 2.85 per cent a year, compared with 3 per cent in 2014/ 2015.
Nest executive director corporate services Debbie Gupta said that, despite significantly adding to its debt to the Department of Work and Pensions over the year, she was “confident Nest will be delivered at no overall cost to the taxpayer” (pensions advisor).
Over the next year, Nest paid the DWP £25.6m in interest payments, almost £4m more than the previous year.
But the scheme spent less on salaries and wages, £18.8m in 2015/2016 compared with £20.6m in 2014/2015.
The scheme’s new Chief Executive, Helen Dean, was the highest-paid employee of those listed in the annual report, receiving an annual salary of between £210,000 and £215,000.
That was £20,000 less than her predecessor Tim Jones. The scheme also spent an extra £8.5m on software, bringing the total software spend to date to £80.2m.
As for the pension scheme itself, Nest reported it now has 3.3m members 135,000 singed up to employers, and 11,800 intermediaries signed up to Nest Connect.
(FTadviser, May, 2016)
Pensions Advisor Bristol
If you would like to speak with one of our Independent Financial Advisors and potentially receive financial advice, please contact us on 0117 923 7652. We are based in Clifton, Bristol but we are happy to service clients from across the UK and we provide free initial meetings at our client’s convenience.
Churchill Wealth Management Limited is located at 13 Alma Vale Rd, Bristol BS8 2HL, United Kingdom.
About Us: Churchill Wealth Management is a team of independent financial advisors/financial advisers (IFAs) based in Clifton, Bristol. We provide independent financial advice, including pension advice, investment advice, inheritance tax planning and protection/insurance advice.