Employer Pension Contributions

Evilm

miriam_d wrote: »

When I was working for a different company in 2007 I had a pension of some sort. I was only there for a year or so but now I have no idea what's happened to that and where it is. What is the best way of finding out?

I don't suppose you still have the paperwork? If you do that will have a plan number on it and a company name.

If not try the tracing service linked by someone above.

Basically it will still be there still active but with no current contributions.

If you get a current statement from them then you can perhaps look at speaking to an advisor to see if you should be trying to pay into that one or changing it and moving the funds to a new one to pay into.

Savvy_Sue

miriam_d wrote: »

My organisation doesn't currently provide a pension so its good to know that tehy will soon be legally obliged to.

How many employees? As I said before, unless they are very small, they MUST currently give you access to a pension plan - stakeholder, for example - into which you can have deductions from payroll made.

If I'm wrong about this, I'm sure Amanita will put me right.

I'm not saying they've actually done anything about this, mind, but that legislation has been around for some years!!!

miriam_d

In reply to

"How many employees? As I said before, unless they are very small, they MUST currently give you access to a pension plan - stakeholder, for example - into which you can have deductions from payroll made."

In England I would guess that they've got around 45 people, the majority of them being full time. If they must contribute currently then could anyone point me in the direction of the legalities on that one? Sorry if that's already been posted and I've missed it!

Thanks

Amanita_2

An employer of that size is legally required to have a designated stakeholder scheme and allow you to make contributions into it via payroll.

Based on that company size they do not have to make any contributions themselves until at least 2014/15. If they have fewer than 50 employees then you may have to wait as long as 2017.

You should have been given details when you joined of the existing scheme - if you have an HR person then they would be the best person to ask. Otherwise a manager.

Googlewhacker

Amanita wrote: »

If an employee opts out then there is no obligation on the employer to make the 3% contribution which is why there is another whole shed load of rules and regulations to stop an employer "encouraging" employees to opt out.

How will this actually be policed???

As said before pensions are good and need to be done, however it will mean there won't be many pay rises around the year it is implimented to effectively pay for this

LadyMissA

Googlewhacker wrote: »

How will this actually be policed???

As said before pensions are good and need to be done, however it will mean there won't be many pay rises around the year it is implimented to effectively pay for this

I can see people who opt out getting a pay increase and those who are in it may not. I know if I was still at my old co the 3% is way more than my total pay rise in the 5 years I was there and they really wont like that.

Savvy_Sue

miriam_d wrote: »

In reply to

"How many employees? As I said before, unless they are very small, they MUST currently give you access to a pension plan - stakeholder, for example - into which you can have deductions from payroll made."

In England I would guess that they've got around 45 people, the majority of them being full time. If they must contribute currently then could anyone point me in the direction of the legalities on that one? Sorry if that's already been posted and I've missed it!

Your employer does not currently HAVE to contribute, but they are legally required to have a scheme into which you CAN contribute. As Amanita says:

Amanita wrote: »

An employer of that size is legally required to have a designated stakeholder scheme and allow you to make contributions into it via payroll.

Based on that company size they do not have to make any contributions themselves until at least 2014/15. If they have fewer than 50 employees then you may have to wait as long as 2017.

You should have been given details when you joined of the existing scheme - if you have an HR person then they would be the best person to ask. Otherwise a manager.

Having said that, if you worked for my company (you don't, because we're smaller!), we wouldn't give you details while you were still on probation. In theory, your line manager would give you details at your end of probation interview. In reality, it might be a while after that before I noticed that you weren't enrolled and made sure you had details.