Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the £1.2 million spent on research by National Employment Savings Trust in fiscal year 2013-14.

The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) Corporation’s Annual Report and Accounts 2013 /14 shows that £1.252 million was spent on research related activity.

This expenditure included:

· Projects with employers and advisors to help predict operational volumes for NEST in the peak employer staging months of summer 2014. This helped NEST Corporation to develop the right levels of resourcing and service to deal with the increased numbers of staging employers.

· Customer satisfaction research with NEST employers and members, to understand their views on their experience of NEST.

· Research on testing of communications materials for members and service proposition testing for small companies.

Research related communications activity mainly focused on communicating with employers and intermediaries to prepare them for automatic and enrolment and how to use NEST.