Winners and losers in the state sector savings scheme

ASB has emerged even more successfully than was thought in the bidding war for civil servants’ savings.

Tuesday, February 15th 2005, 1:25AM

by Rob Hosking

The bank has picked up more than 54% of those eligible for the state sector retirement savings scheme, launched by the government in July last year.

Earlier reports indicated ASB had around 50%; with the other two providers, AXA and AMP, at around 30% and 20% respectively.

According to documents obtained by Supertalk under the Official Information Act, 25,865 public servants signed up to this scheme in the period to September last year. Of these, ASB picked up 14,034; AXA 7,301 or 28.2%; and AMP was left with 4,530 or 17.5%.

The State Services Commission has had some problems collating the data from the many government agencies involved, with earlier reports inflating the numbers taking up the scheme.

“In total, membership of the state sector retirement savings scheme and the teachers retirement savings scheme increased by 29,000 as a result of the SSRSS launch rather than over 36,000 as previously reported,” according to a report to State Services Minister Trevor Mallard in December.

Enrolments were overstated from some government departments. There was also some “double counting” of people already enrolled in the teachers’ savings scheme - the “pilot” for the wider SSRSS scheme launched in 2002.

For the providers though, that is still a total of nearly 26,000 people who were not previously in superannuation schemes. Overall take up of the scheme is 46% of eligible employees.

The State Services Commission is shortly to release research on how public servants chose their provider and what factors influenced their choices. What has been released now though is the spread of take-up over government departments.

The range is considerable, although it reflects the numbers on high salaries in a particular agency and also whether an agency already had a savings scheme. Topping the list was the Serious Fraud Office, with 87.5% of eligible employees joining the scheme.

The ministries of Defence and Women’s Affairs were not far behind, at 86.7% and 86.4% respectively. The lowest ranking department, which does not already have a scheme, is Internal Affairs, with only a 13.8% take up.

Rob Hosking is a Wellington-based freelance writer specialising in political, economic and IT related issues.

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