Are you ready for automatic en

Are you ready for automatic enrolment?

Workplace pensions law has changed in the UK.  Every employer has new legal duties to help their workers in the UK save for retirement.

Are you ready for automatic en

They must automatically enrol certain workers into a qualifying workplace pension scheme and make contributions towards it.

What do employers and employees need to pay?

Depending on the size of your business, there are different staging dates for implementation and set-up of your scheme.  Small business will start auto-enrolling from 2015.  Total contributions will start at 2% (Employer 1% and employee 1%) and will go up to a total of 8% from October 2018 (Employer 3% and employee 5%)

Why the reforms?

Many are not saving at all and many are just not saving enough?

According to the Department for Work & Pensions,

  • The UK Govt. estimates 7m people are not saving enough for retirement.
  • 86% of UK employers have no pension provision.
  • 31% of workers don’t take up employer contributions.
  • 13.8m workers have no workplace pension provision.
  • This is 53% of the UK workforce.

Another reason is that we are simply living longer!  Life expectancy for someone state retirement age is now 86.3 for men and 88.7 for women (Source: Office for National Statistics).  More than half of babies born in developed countries today will live to be 100 (Source: Lancet, by Professor Kaare )

Penalties

For not doing what you MUST or doing what you MUST NOT

Fixed Penalties Issued by Pensions Regulator – £400

Then a prescribed daily rate applies for non-compliance!

WARNING: You MUST NOT

  • Encourage employees to opt out.
  • Use recruitment practices that will benefit job applicants who indicate they are prepared to opt out.
  • Treat an employee unfairly or put them at a disadvantage because of auto enrolment.

Next step for Employers

  • Establish YOUR staging date (s) .
  • Nominate a contact with Regulator
  • Discuss with your existing professional connections: accountant, scheme adviser.
  • Establish timescale and resources needed.

Our new service designed to assist our clients

Exceed UK provides auto enrolment services to assist our clients with the implementation and maintenance of their automatic enrolment duties.

Our new service is designed to be completely flexible and our clients can select the aspects of auto enrolment they want to do and those they want us to look after.  Should you be interested in this service, give Exceed UK a call today on +44(0)1784 439955

 Feature image courtsey of Business Connections Live