Personal Accounts – Short Update; deferral of start date and a change of name
The Pre Budget report at the end of last year announced a further delay in the
start date of auto-enrolment , and thus compulsory contributions, to the Personal
Accounts regime. Previously the start date had been planned for April 2010, but
this had long since slipped to September of 2012.
The plan was to phase in contributions for employers based on their number of
employees over the first two years, starting with the largest first. This is still
to be the case but the phasing period now is more extended than before. The
starting point for smaller employers (50 or less employees) is something of a
lottery; those of you in this category may be starting as soon a July 2014 or
as late as Jan 2016 depending on the numbers and letters in your PAYE reference.
For a full listing of dates see;
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2010/uksi_20100004_en_1
Name Change
We started with the name National Pensions Savings Scheme, ‘NPSS’ for short
(or as one commentator unkindly abbreviated it, “Nat’s PSS”!). Clearly the
Personal Accounts Delivery Authority has been working hard to decide on how
best to communicate it’s activities to UK Plc and the population as a whole,
it must have been as it has spent the best part of £40 million since it was
established in July 2007! In its wisdom though it has decided that just a
little more spending would help by changing name again. From now on we are
to refer to the new compulsory pension scheme as NEST – the National Employment
Savings Trust. Thoroughly worth a further £360,000 of our tax money.
Lighthouse Group Employee Benefits specialise in advice to employers
around the provision of benefits to their staff. For further details on
how Personal Accounts (now NEST) will effect your business and what you
can do to both minimise the negative impact and exploit the positive
potential of this legislation please contact Steve Howard, Managing Director,
on 0161 819 4940 or
steve.howard@lighthousegroup.plc.uk