How we can help businesses

Our corporate offering is extensive. We offer a variety of solutions from group pension to partnership protection arrangements.

We’ll even help you prepare for pension reforms including the introduction of:

• Auto-enrolment into NEST (National Employment Savings Trust).
• Auto-enrolment into workplace pensions.

We can work closely with your accounts firm or legal advisers to ensure our advice has taken into account your circumstances in full.

What are the current pension reforms?

The pension reforms mean that employers will need to make pension provision for their staff.  This means either automatically enrolling staff into workplace pensions or into NEST (National Employment Savings Trust), a new national pension plan.

What are the new duties for employers?

Between 2012 and 2017, employers must:

• Automatically include most of their staff in a qualifying pension scheme
• Make payments to their chosen scheme(s) for staff.

When will the new duties take affect?

The new employer duties are being introduced in stages, starting in October 2012 with the very largest employers and gradually being rolled out to cover all employers by September 2017.

When should employers start planning?

This might all seem a long way away, but now is the time to start planning for it. Whether businesses have one employee or one thousand and whether they have a pension plan in place already or not, they need to prepare for the changes.

How much will employers need to pay into employees’ pensions?

The chosen qualifying pension scheme must provide total payments of at least 8% of band earnings by October 2018, with the employer paying at least 3%. Band earnings are earnings between £5,772 and £41,865 (figures for band earnings are based on tax year 2014/15 and are expected to change each year).

The minimum payments will be gradually stepped-up from 2% to 5% then the full 8%, to reduce the financial impact on employers and employees alike.

Starting to plan now will allow employers and employees to explore ways to phase in the changes and avoid any sudden shocks.

Employers – contact us today to discuss your plans and we can help you get the right strategy in place for both your business and your staff.

Our Scottish base in Glasgow is no barrier to advising businesses across the UK.

A pension is a long term investment. The fund value can fluctuate and go down.  All information is based on Farrell Financial Planning’s understanding of UK law & HMRC practice in the UK.  Tax and legislation are subject to change.