The People’s Pension’s £3.8bn default was the biggest master trust default in terms of assets, as at 31.3.18 – boosted by just over £1bn of assets belonging to 440,000 members of B&CE’s EasyBuild stakeholder scheme which were transferred into the master trust last year. Even so, taking this into account, The People’s Pension’s auto-enrolment member average pot size is more than double Nest’s, reflecting that organisation’s public service obligation to take all-comers.

The Legal & General WorkSave Mastertrust held £1.37bn of assets of its £9bn Multi-Asset Fund on its master trust platform at 31.3.18, part of a total of £4.75bn of assets held on L&G’s master trust pension platform.

The People’s Pension’s per-member asset ratio also compares favourably with that of Now: Pensions, which has just £630m across 1.6m employees. However, while The People’s Pension charges employers at sign-up, Now: Pensions’ ongoing charge for employers means it can earn ongoing revenue from its 32,000 scheme sponsors.

At £59m, the Ensign scheme is not the smallest in our sample by assets – our smallest here is the SuperTrust UK Master Trust, run by BBS Consultants & Actuaries, which has been operating it for over 12 years. It has an average member pot in excess of £20,000.