We are embarking on auto-enrolment as of 2018…
Question 1: What pensions provider are you using?
Question 2: Would you recommend them?
Questions 3: Are there ethical/inline with our values pensions providers out there, and if so should we look at having a recommended one to sign up to with new co-op employers who are part of Cotech?
Any insight would be much appreciated 
Abi
WOW
Best performer in ethical rankings is Aviva at 39 points OUT OF 80
People’s pension which is one of the ones the government seems to push over others scores 4.
There was a long Radical Routes email thread on this last year and the conclusion was that there is no ideal answer, the best options being NEST or The Peoples Pension, we opted for NEST.
An ethical, co-operative pension provider is clearly needed in the UK…
We’re also using NEST at Go Free Range. I seem to remember it being
relatively easy to set-up and it’s easy to administer each month. On that
basis, I’d recommend them.
Cheers, Chris
The fact that Xero integrates with NEST seems to be another thumbs up, but boy, it s apick of a bad bunch, right?
Hi Abi,
We contracted pensions.coop to assess the right pensions provider for us and then went with Standard Life, who have a range of ethical pensions based on your risk profile and particular ethical criteria. I think the process was pretty smooth and having an expert come in and explain pensions and how they work, as well as advise us on a provider, was very helpful for those of us who know nothing of such things!
Cheers,
Aaron
As @Chris says, we’re also using NEST and I agree with these comments.
I initially scanned the market and I remember seeing somewhere that through NEST it’s possible to switch to an ethical pension fund (the default is not ethical, no surprise). Has anyone tried this?
Jonathan
Webarchitects
Calverts is using Peoples’ Pension, sure I can intro you to our finance suprema Acrelda if you want to check it out from a user perspective
Ta Sion, I’d be interested to know Acrelda’s opinion of Peoples’ Pension in terms of structure and where the profit goes ultimately … ?
(I didn’t get a positive impression when I did a bit of online research, about a year ago)
Cheers,
Jonathan
Hi, she chose PP on grounds that it was a) cheaper and b) more flexible than most of the others. Individuals get to then allocate their investments (risk level, ethical criteria, etc).
OK thanks Sion.
It’s good to know individuals can allocate their investments with PP, I
didn’t know that.
I seem to remember we decided, reluctantly, on NEST because the
initial setup cost with PP was higher.
NEST is easy to operate once you read through a million pages of
“guidance” - but any mention of switching NEST to ethical investment is
buried so deeply I haven’t got there yet.
All the best,
Jonathan.
Hi Folks
We’ve been looking into this and recommended Aviva or NEST as the best of the (bad) bunch - it seems from this thread NEST is the way to go - anyone got any updates on this?
Thanks!
Annie
Hey, we signed up with NEST. Its kinda fine, we find submitting the pension fillings each month a right pain in the butt, but that is because we don’t pay ourselves a consistent amount so we are constantly having to change the amounts (we pay for the hours we work rather than a fixed salary). But no critical concerns with NEST as a pension provider so far. XX