FOI release

National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) Loan Agreement

Four requests regarding the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) Loan Agreement.

From:
HM Treasury
Published
4 August 2011

Documents

FOI version of loan agreement between DWP and NEST Corporation

PDF, 1.12 MB, 58 pages

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Details

Request

  • What funds have HM Treasury provided to the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST, formerly the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, aka PADA) in each fiscal year from April 2007 up until the present day?
  • Which of these funds are repayable to HM Treasury?
  • Under what terms are the funds repayable? (Repayment period and interest rate on funds lent)
  • Please provide official document(s) setting out the terms of the loan to the National Employment Savings Trust (or PADA).

Disclosure

HM Treasury does not provide any funding to NEST Corporation. NEST Corporation is funded by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Consequently, NEST Corporation funds are not repayable to HM Treasury. NEST is initially funded by a loan from DWP for the purposes of setting up and administering the scheme.

Some information about the funding provided to NEST Corporation since April 2007 is already in the public domain. The predecessor body to NEST Corporation, the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA), published annual reports and accounts which provide details of its funding arrangements, and NEST Corporation will aim to do so by mid-July. These can be accessed via the NEST website.

The DWP has also provided information on its loan to NEST in response to Parliamentary questions from Lord Hollick on 29 March and 18 May 2011. This can be found on the UK Parliament website.

We have made available a copy of the loan document between DWP and NEST Corporation. Having considered the information in line with the exemptions within the FoI Act, the Treasury has concluded that it is in the public interest to release this document. However, two redactions of specific terms within the document have been made under the exemption of commercial interests (section 43) - these are at section 1.1 ‘Applicable Interest Rate’ and section 15.3(A)(3)(e)(I) respectively.  The first section has been redacted because the description contained within it could prejudice Government policy in future lending to other public sector bodies and the methodology used by the Debt Management Office in setting interest rates for such loans. The second redaction has been made because we have concluded the information would otherwise prejudice NEST Corporation’s commercial interests and has commercial importance to other pension providers.

Published 4 August 2011