Businesses in Cornwall will have the chance to hear directly from the Pensions Regulator ahead of major changes in pensions.
Ian Digby, industry liaison manager at the Pensions Regulator, will be speaking about the introduction of auto-enrolment at an event at Kingsley Village on Wednesday, October 22.
The seminar has been organised by independent financial advisors (IFA), Worldwide Financial Planning, Stephens Scown LLP, Lang Bennetts chartered accountants and Santander bank.
Matt Higham, an IFA at Worldwide, who is helping to organise the event, said: “We’re very pleased to have Ian Digby from the Pensions Regulator coming to Cornwall to update businesses on auto-enrolment.
“Pensions are not exciting, but they are incredibly important. The changes in pension legislation will impact on every business, employer and employee in the UK. The Workplace Pension reforms mean it is now the responsibility of employers to make sure employees are automatically enrolled into a pension scheme and informed of this.”
The seminar will give businesses with fewer than 50 employees essential information on what they need to do before staging begins on or after April 2015.
Matt said: “The changes to now have only really impacted larger businesses. We’re now getting to the stage where small businesses, ones with fewer that 50 employees, need to take action.
“This means that businesses in Cornwall, where around 85% of companies employ fewer than 10 people, need to start the process.”
Auto-enrolment was introduced by the Government in 2012 as a way to try and address the potential pensions time bomb the country is facing.
Matt added: “Currently 750,000 employers have no workplace retirement scheme in place, while it is estimated that 7,000,000 people in the working population are making insufficient savings for the future.
“Also, most people earning between £5,000 and £25,000 make no pension contribution whatsoever.”
According to Worldwide, businesses have two options: they can either wait and let someone who knows nothing about their business set up and run a pension scheme for their employees, or they can contact an IFA, accountant or solicitor and set up their own scheme.
To book a place on the seminar please email Alison Norman at Lang Bennetts on Alison.normam@lang-bennetts.co.uk.