What is auto enrolment?  Well work place pensions are due to change in October of this year and employers and employees will have to be offered contributory Work Place pension scheme – that’s right HAVE to!  It’s no longer any good to have a template Stakeholder that nobody joins or to pay a concessionary £30 a month to a scheme.  As an Employer and Employee you will have to meet strict criteria at certain times and certain staging dates, which will vary, depending on the size the company.  If you don’t meet them then there are large fines (£5000) for those companies who ignore the rules.  I say companies, but really it does not matter as you could be a sole trader with one employee or a partnership with 10 employees,  or a sole trader with 5 contractors working for you.  If the people working for you are considered as “job holders” then you will need a pension scheme in place and you will have to “Automatically Enrol” them at precise times after they become eligible.  Employees will be able to opt out, but again there are very strict guidelines surrounding these rules and the Employer will automatically have enrol the Opted Out Employee again each year.

You can find more information at The Pensions Regulators website www.tpr.gov.uk/7-steps or you can click on the following link on our website http://bit.ly/GBmAU5

The country really needs to get Employers and Employees focused on to saving for their retirement.  Some Companies will have qualifying schemes already, so will not be affected as they will meet the basic criteria.  However it is estimated that a million employers will need to put a scheme is place, whether they join NEST (see previous article http://bit.ly/GAUIDI), increase their existing scheme or take out a new qualifying pension, there are lots of choices.

What can I do now? How can Giles Warren Financial help me?  If you are an employer you can give us your PAYE reference number then we will let you know your Staging Date for free.  This is the dead line for when you must have a qualifying scheme in place.  Once you have this date you can then at least create plan of attack.  If you like we will also chat through your auto enrolment options at a free preliminary meeting.

I hope this has been of help and whether you are an Employer, Employee, Contractor, Part Time or Temp please call us on 01753 626866 if you have any questions.