Pensions

With people living longer, and not saving enough for their retirement, the Government has changed the law on workplace pensions and every employer must comply. The onus is firmly on employers to help encourage more people to save for retirement by contributing into a workplace pension scheme via auto enrolment.

All UK employers have to automatically enrol their staff into a workplace pension if they meet certain criteria and make contributions. Furthermore employers will have to tell their staff about the scheme they have been put into and allow other staff to join if they request to do so. Automatic enrolment is not just about pensions, it will impact upon most areas of your clients' businesses.

Recent research carried out by the Pensions Regulator suggests that significant numbers of micro and small employers will be approaching their business advisers (including accountants) to guide and support them through the automatic enrolment journey.

The Pensions Regulator has recently acted to help reduce the challenge of automatic enrolment for small and micro employers with a new interactive step by step website guide. The new online journey includes the following:

  1. A duties checker: to help employers understand which duties apply to them, there are interactive questions which allow an employer to quickly establish if they will need to put any staff into a pension scheme.
  2. A step-by-step guide for those who do not employ staff eligible for automatic enrolment, including how to provide a pension scheme for employees who still ask to join one. 
  3. It provides a streamlined journey for those with domestic workers and those who employ a personal care assistant.
  4. Videos, animation and infographics all helping employers understand what automatic enrolment is and what they need to consider when choosing a pension scheme.

To view the new content, go to www.thepensionsregulator.com/en/employers.

You can also click here to subscribe the Pensions Regulator's news-by-email-service - it's a free and easy way to keep up to date with all automatic enrolment developments.