AUTOMATIC ENROLMENT UPDATE

The Institute of Financial Studies (IFS) have announced that September is an important month for the Automatic Enrolment pension scheme. Those businesses with 61 employees begin their auto enrolment duties. There is only 12 months until employers of less than 30 workers will have a duty to stage auto enrolment.

Businesses that his their staging date 5 months ago must complete their ‘Automatic Declaration of Compliance’ with The Pensions Regulator.

It is important to consider payroll and Auto Enrolment assessment software as they hold the information required to run automatic enrolment and can improve the process and communications involved in a successful scheme.

You must also have a qualifying workplace pension scheme which will need to be registered with the Pensions Regulator and checked to ensure that it meets the new Auto Enrolment standards.

Opt out rates by workers are a lot lower than we had expected at just 8.5%. Fortunately the majority of employees are aware that they should be saving for their retirement and value the pension set up for them by their employer.

To reduce the complications of the scheme you are advised to begin planning earlier and involve your staff in the decisions that matter to them.

There is a growing need for smaller employers to obtain information, help and guidance from external sources because they might not be large enough to employ someone in house to deal with their new duties.

If you require any assistance in setting up Auto Enrolment and would like to find out more contact us.