For those who are ‘into’ automatic enrolment this is obvious news we picked up on. However this raises a question…

Should professionals whose core business isn’t automatic enrolment related or businesses who just need to comply really care?

and usually the answer would be no.

Why would employers care about what the pension regulator aims to achieve…

However there are one of the goals which employers and the professionals who work with them should care about.

You see one of the pensions regulators main goals is…

“To protect employers against poorly governed master trusts”

You see there’s a decent number of pension schemes available an employer who’s looking to comply with automatic enrolment can choose from. Some are fantastically managed. Some are decently managed….and quite a few don’t sit in either category.

Choosing a pension scheme is an important part of the automatic enrolment process. Whilst short term it might seem more important to meet a businesses regulatory obligations and make sure the payroll software is working as it should the reality is making a mistake on selecting a poorly governed pension could cause more harm than good.

Imagine this…

You pick a pension (either for your business or on behalf of the employers you help)

It’s not a traditional provider and one you might not have heard of before but it provides you with a low cost (or ‘free’) way of complying with automatic enrolment by putting in place an appropriate scheme.

Then, a couple of years down the road, and due to the poor governance the pension regulator is looking to crack down on the scheme fails.

Now no one knows the specific implications of a failed automatic enrolment scheme at this point….however the odds are it’s probably going to take time, effort and energy to solve the challenges it throws up for a business.

The solution to this is clear…

Make sure you select a decent pension scheme from day one.

Now there’s a number of ways you can do this.

You can speak to a financial adviser or planner to support you…(this needs to be changed on the partner email)

You can do your own due diligence and make your own selection.(this needs to be changed on the partner email)

or

You can use a system like AE in a Box to help.

You see AE in a Box, in addition to the loads of services it provides for employers who need to comply with automatic enrolment and the professionals who work with them, has completed due diligence on the schemes we show on our platform, a pension selection tool which highlights both the pros and cons of each scheme and a way for employers (and the professionals who work with them) to have a clear audit trail when selecting a scheme.

However whatever route you decide to take.

Make sure you select a decent high quality sustainable pension scheme…

As doing so will ensure that in the future you’ll avoid a potentially messy arrangement.

Let us know if we can help…

Call us at 01708 606202