According to research by UK banking giant Barclays, one quarter of small to medium size employers do not regularly review the performance of those investments in which they have invested their staff's pensions.

In contrast to this, the majority (83%) of small to medium size (SME) employers agree that pensions are a responsibility that companies should take to help secure their employee’s futures.

The findings from Barclays Financial Planning follow recent research that one in ten SME employers do not offer their staff a company pension scheme. Moreover, nearly a third of employers (32%) might be running pension schemes that expose them to financial risk or high costs.

Of those offering a company pension scheme, just 11% now offer a final salary scheme open to all staff, while 5% have closed their schemes to new staff. Other types of pension schemes used by SME employers include trust based defined contribution schemes (16%), contract based defined contribution schemes (52%) and stakeholder schemes (12%).

Furthermore, only half of all employees (52%) surveyed say they regularly update staff as to how their pension is performing.