Employer Pension Centre

The Employer Pension Centre.

These pages are specifically for employers and deal with various aspects of employee benefits provision.

Please choose from the menu on the left that most affects you or your employees.

Five Employees or more? Did you know that if you have 5 or more employees you must have at least a stakeholder pension scheme in place?

Compulsory Pension Scheme: Did you know that a new National Pension Savings Scheme is on its way that will force all employers to pay into a pension scheme for staff?

In the Employer Pension Centre:

Company Schemes

Need help setting up a company pension scheme: Contact us.

1.  Stakeholder Pensions - Do you employ 5 employees? Employers - Control Your Costs With A Pension Scheme

If you have visited our stakeholder page you will already be aware of new Employer rules (Interactive Guide).

You will be aware of the requirements on you as an employer to offer a pension scheme to your employee's.  However, you do not want added burdens or risks of having to pay in too much. 

You need a staff pension scheme where you control your costs.  Even if you are not required to do so - it is still worth considering as you control the costs and it can provide excellent benefits for your business.

For your business - Employee Pension Schemes can deliver Easier recruitment - staff do value employers who make an effort to look after their welfare in retirement.  It may also help to attract higher quality staff.

Increased staff loyalty & morale - Happy staff tend to be more productive.  Being seen as a caring employer may reduce staff turnover which in turn reduces recruitment and training costs.

2.  Controlling your costs - You choose whether to make contributions or not.  You can also pay in lump sums or increase regular contributions at any time.  We take the administration burden away from you.  Having to make payroll deductions for employer contributions is a cost on your business' time and therefore profits.  Let us take that burden away from you - we can assist with payroll systems, computer systems and even totally run your scheme on the Internet.

Tax privileged - Your contributions are normally treated as a business expense and can therefore be offset against your income tax or corporation tax.  Contact us now to help you establish a Scheme.

For your employees - Employee Pension Schemes can deliver benefits - a pension scheme is a prized and valuable benefit respected by employees.  It is also simple and easier for them, to have contributions deducted from pay, this is normally the only way your employees may get to save.  How many times have you heard the phrase "I do not even miss it now that it is taken straight from my salary".  Your employees decide how much they wish to pay and can vary it when they desire.

For Stakeholder Pensions, you can restrict employee changes to once every six months - thus again reducing your administration burden.  They decide on their retirement date and they also get tax relief on their contributions.  Also, these schemes are totally portable - if they leave they take their pension scheme with them - again reducing your administration burden.   A 28% return on their contributions immediately!  That is some pay rise that they will thank you for. 

The Welfare Reform and Pensions Act was passed on 11 November, 1999 and introduced Stakeholder Regulations which became law on 6 April, 2001.   

It placed a number of requirements (Stakeholder Pensions Regulations 2000) on employers, with regard to their employees, who must comply with this law or face fines of up to £50,000 or imprisonment or both.

This law is to do with offering employees access to a staff pension scheme. 

3.  If you employ more than four people then YOU ARE AFFECTED.

If you are exempt but subsequently come within the regulations you will only have 3 months to comply.

To ensure that you comply with the new laws, you may need to review and/or amend your existing pension scheme arrangements so that you can gain an exemption from the rules or establish a new style staff Stakeholder Pension Scheme. 

You do not necessarily need to contribute to a new Stakeholder Scheme.  Employers have got to take note of this - make sure you are fully informed as the Inland Revenue are now starting to write to employers to obtain confirmation that they have complied with the law.

We have a site totally dedicated to Stakeholder including help for employers, interactive guides and even designating schemes on.

Contact us for more on the benefits of a stakeholder pension.

Benefits of a pension scheme for both employers and employees.

4.  Employee Benefits: Happy Workers 

Offering employees benefits such as a pension scheme can be an effective tool for increasing staff loyalty, happiness and indeed productivity.  'A happy worker is a productive worker'.

There is no compulsion on employers to contribute to certain types of staff pension schemes but consideration should be given.  Contributions can start at a modest level and with some planning can be a highly effective tool for increasing a feeling of staff loyalty.

Indirect Benefits - they may even reduce staff turnover which, indirectly, reduces costs associated with finding and training new recruits.  The biggest cost on an employer is the staff.  Why waste money on training and development of staff only for them to leave for a better overall package?

If you are worried about costs - there are ways to control your costs.

5.  Tax Benefits for Employers

Save Tax - Employer contributions are fully allowable as a business expense.  They can be offset against your tax liability to reduce any income tax or corporation tax that you may pay.

Save National Insurance - Employer contributions are not treated as pay for employees and, therefore, as an employer you will not pay any increased employers National Insurance Contributions.  This represents an ideal way to offer your employees enhanced benefits rather than straight pay rises.  You will not have the potential additional burden of employers National Insurance contributions on the pay rise.

There are many other ways to offer benefits to your employees which are extremely cost effective such as Company Life Assurance Schemes, Company Sickness Schemes as well as Company Medical Insurance Schemes. 

Would you like your Company to have its own pensions intranet website?

We can house this in a secure, password protected, Client Centre for you.

This would provide an added benefit for your staff and show that you care at little extra cost as well as cutting down your time spent on pension administration.

Contact us  and speak to one of our specialists about establishing a Staff Pensions Web site link of your own - complete with on-line functionality.  On your behalf we could build in many other special services for your employee's.  With our extensive range of contacts we can look at arranging special terms and links for mortgages, banking, life insurance, sickness cover, investments or indeed any other area that you may wish to consider.

E.g.  Even if you wanted our help to establish a discount connection for buying Wide-screen televisions, other electrical goods or travel insurance we can achieve it with this type of service for you.

• In addition to the above service we also offer:
• Reports, Tenders and Research
• We offer payroll assistance
• Employee meetings and presentations
• Ensure you comply with the new pensions laws
• Work-site marketing/Online Management
• Help for your Accountants
• Ensure value for you and your employees at low cost
• We offer a Complete Employee Benefits Service

Contact us and get help to set up your company pension website.

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