market. These inequalities mean that certain individuals cannot access higher-paying jobs and there are less opportunities for both career development and promotion in the roles that they are in. This subsequently means that they are less likely to be eligible for automatic enrolment, which then impacts their ability to save sufficiently for their retirement. The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) Retirement Living Standards suggest that an individual should have £20,200 per year, or £29,100 per couple for a ‘moderate’ lifestyle in retirement. When a private pension income is combined with the State Pension and other various benefits, most under-pensioned groups will find it hard to achieve incomes that exceed the minimum retirement living standard of £10,200 per year for an individual, or £15,700 for a couple.
Individuals with disabilities are the only under-pension group who may possibly reach the minimum retirement living standard once the State Pension and benefits they receive top up their private pension savings.
Auto-Enrolment has been applauded for placing more individuals into pension saving in the UK, but there is still more work to be done, as there are still millions of people not saving into a pension scheme. The research conducted by NOW: Pensions indicates that Auto-Enrolment was designed for traditional patterns of work and isn’t designed to assist employees who take substantial career breaks or those who work in part-time roles.
NOW: Pensions policy proposals
The report offers two policy proposals which would serve to close the pension savings gap, as follows:
• Remove the £10,000 AE trigger – this would result in an extra 2.5 million people saving into workplace pensions • Pension contributions should be taken from the first £1 – this would increase pension wealth for ‘under- pensioned’ groups by an average of 30% - however, in some scenarios it would increase by 52%
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Updates to The Pension Regulator’s Automatic Enrolment guidance for employers 14 December 2020
As a result of feedback from recent working group meetings held by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) and 121 meetings , the regulator is aware of the fact that nominated contacts provided to TPR by employers may have altered due to staff being placed on furlough or business changes prompted by the outbreak of coronavirus.
As a result of this, the COVID guidance for employers has been updated to incorporate the message conveying the importance of notifying TPR of any changes to contact details.
In scenarios where the correct person does not receive TPR’s communications, businesses are leaving themselves open to the risk of being non-compliant with their Auto-Enrolment duties and, similarly, of missing crucial deadlines. Advisers also need to ensure that their clients are aware of the importance of keeping TPR up to date with any amendments to nominated contacts for Auto-Enrolment duties for the same reasons.
TPR can be notified of any changes to nominated contacts here.
There is also information on how to nominate a contact available online.
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The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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