Spare a thought for our colleagues across the road from FT towers, who work in the strange and wonderful world of Nest.

For their dear leader and lead guitarist Tim Jones will be leaving at the end of the year to return to the digital payments sector. Can Guns N’ Roses keep it on the road without Slash?

A glance at the staging dates timetable makes clear the challenge to the state-sponsored pension scheme. By that time auto-enrolment will be moving into the world of employers with fewer than 30 staff. This was predicted to be one of the crunch times for the success of this reform, and Nest within that.

At that point, as Jargonfree Benefits’ Steve Bee wrote for us in April last year, “we will know if this reform will be judged a great success or a great failure”.

Illustration by Ben Jennings

At that point, as Jargonfree Benefits’ Steve Bee wrote for us in April last year, “we will know if this reform will be judged a great success or a great failure”.

An army of small employers, many of whom with little mind to pensions – exactly the type of companies at which the government wanted to encourage private retirement provision – will need to be frog-marched through the process.

The optimists say many of the auto-enrolment creases have been ironed out with the larger and medium-sized employers, and ‘processes’ have been ‘streamlined’ ready for the smaller end of the market.

Indeed, as we wrote in October, some small employers such as nutrition provider Dr Schär UK have even made preparations to enrol earlier than usual.

But consultants are clear that unless there has been significant engagement between employer and provider ahead of staging, there will be problems.

This is what will be weighing on the minds of those aiming for business as usual at Nest, which also saw a new chair, Otto Thoresen, take over from Lawrence Churchill at the start of this month.

Nest has had a smooth ride so far and its advocates secured a decent win in the bringing forward of the removal of its contribution and transfer restrictions, confirmed last year.

All eyes will be on the calibre of Jones’s successor, and there is at least plenty of time to look.

Ian Smith is editor of Pensions Expert. You can follow him on Twitter @iankmsmith and the team @pensions_expert.