If you need help and professional advice in getting your Workplace Pension Scheme in place Opus Gold can help you.

The basic information

• Auto Enrolment is the Governments attempt to address the shortfall in UK pension savings.
• Work is on-going to introduce a number of changes to UK pension planning.  There are some fundamental changes proposed.
• There is likely to be a ‘flat rate’ State Pension, eradicating the need for means tested benefits.
• The state pension will start to be paid later in life for both male and females.
• The ability to access Personal Pensions will be linked to 10 years prior to your State Pension Age.

The employer responsibilities are as follows:

• the auto-enrolment of working individuals into a pension scheme, and
• compulsory pension contributions by employers and employees.

Auto-enrolment means that an individual is automatically enrolled into their company’s qualifying pension scheme without any action on their part.   This is now a legal requirement for all UK employers.

Employers can choose to auto-enrol jobholders into a qualifying auto-enrolment pension scheme.  The total minimum pension contribution that needs to be paid into a scheme is 8% of qualifying earnings (band earnings up to a maximum amount), with the employer needing to contribute at least 3%.