The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals ……………………………………………………………Policy News Journal
The first two recommendations are arguably the most important.
There is almost unanimous agreement within the pensions world that 8 per cent contributions are not enough . Indeed, the Pensions Commission’s calculation expected auto-enrolment contributions, together with state pension, to generate a replacement rate of only 45 per cent of pre-retirement income for an average earner. The Commission’s expectation was that people who wanted more should save more.
That said, we believe we can harness the power of inertia to ensure everyone saves enough to provide for a decent retirement.
Redistribution of incentives to those who are less well off will also ensure that lower earners can reach their retirement goals without having to spend their working lives in poverty. Again, it is already widely acknowledged by many pension providers and employers that a simple “save £2, get £1 free” incentive is the best solution here. In making these recommendations public now, we hope to kick off this important debate so that broad agreement on the way forward can be reached next year. We would encourage everyone involved in pensions, particularly auto- enrolment, to consider potential improvements and make their views known.”
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Re-enrolment in 2017 3 January 2017
Anyone who automatically enrolled staff in 2014 will have their re-enrolment date in 2017.
An article from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) explains re-enrolment and how business advisers can help their clients
Every three years certain members of staff must be put back into an automatic enrolment pension scheme. This is called ‘re-enrolment’.
An employer’s duties will vary depending on whether they have staff to re-enrol or not. Either way, they will need to complete a re-declaration of compliance to tell TPR how their duties have been met.
Step 1 – Choose the re-enrolment date
An employer’s re-enrolment date is a chosen date (within a six-month re-enrolment window) and is when all an employer’s staff are reassessed for re-enrolment. The six month re-enrolment window starts three months before and ends three months after the third anniversary of an employer’s automatic enrolment staging date. An employer’s re-declaration deadline will be five months after the third anniversary date. An example is below to help work put when deadlines will be.
Example of re-enrolment and re-declaration deadlines Staging date 1 April 2014 Third anniversary of your staging date 1 April 2017 Re-enrolment window
1 January 2017 to 30 June 2017
Re-declaration deadline
31 August 2017
When choosing the re-enrolment date, it may be useful to choose a date which aligns re-enrolment with other business processes such as the start of your client’s financial year, or to avoid seasonal peaks. It should be noted that postponement cannot be applied at re-enrolment.
Step 2 – Assessing staff
On an employer’s re-enrolment date, they’ll need to assess certain staff to work out if they need to be put back into their workplace pension scheme. They only need to assess certain staff for re-enrolment. Staff must be assessed if they have: asked to leave (opted out of) the pension scheme left (ceased active membership of) the pension scheme after the end of the opt-out period stayed in the pension scheme – but chosen to reduce the level of pension contributions to below the minimum level set by law. There is no need to reassess staff who, on the re-enrolment date:
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Policy News Journal
cipp.org.uk
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