All articles by David Woods – Page 6
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Article
Trustees get transfer value responsibility
Responsibility for calculating pension transfer values will move from actuaries to pension trustees from 1 October. From this date, trustees rather than actuaries will have to calculate and certify what the pension benefits of an employee who decides to leave a defined benefit scheme are worth, should the benefit be ...
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Article
Novartis unifies car perks
Novartis is to harmonise its car fleet across its 11 UK sites and reduce the number of its providers from five to just one.From 12 May, the pharmaceuticals firm will provide a contract hire scheme and a cash allowance plan for its 800 fleet drivers in order to simplify the ...
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Analysis
Greater onus on employers to look after staff needs
In the early 19th century, entrepreneur Robert Owen inherited a large mill in New Lanark, Scotland. The factory and surrounding area was overpopulated by thousands of workers from the slums and workhouses of nearby Glasgow and Edinburgh, so Owen, finding the conditions to be unacceptable, took the radical step of ...
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Article
HR Show: Employers should consider company culture when using reward to engage
Employers have been reminded to consider the culture of their company in order to properly engage their staff.Speaking at at the HR Show in Manchester, Debra Corey, former director of compensation and benefits at Honeywell, told delegates to think about the behaviours and beliefs of their workforce in order to ...
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Article
London City Airport provides fruit to staff
London City Airport has begun to provide fresh fruit to over 400 employees every week.It airport deliver a selection of fruit to each department in association with Community Food Enterprise.Elizabeth Hegarty, community relations manager at London City Airport, said: "The scheme, which was originally set up on a trial basis, ...
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Article
Experian gives staff paid leave to volunteer
Experian is to give all its UK staff three days paid annual leave to volunteer for community-based initiatives as it aims to double the number of hours volunteered by its people over the coming year.The FTSE-100 average donation is two days per person, per year volunteered to good causes.During the ...
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Article
Getronics enhances flexible benefits scheme
Getronics UK has enhanced its flexible benefits provision to better meet the needs of employees and its own corporate requirements following a business merger in 2005 and ongoing Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) (Tupe) obligations.The communication technology firm introduced a range of new benefits including carbon offsetting through the ...
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Article
Stagecoach launches group Sipp
Stagecoach has launched a group self invested personal pension (Sipp) as the main defined contribution (DC) pension arrangement for its 6,000 UK bus division employees.The group Sipp will be made available to 20,000 defined benefit (DB) scheme members in the rail and bus division as an option for their maturing ...
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Article
Nestle implements governance software for four pension schemes
Nestle has implemented governance software for four of its pension schemes.The governance software, provided by eShare, will automatically produce risk registers and manage risk on an ongoing basis.The software will provide a central searchable base of information for trustees, and ensure that information for trustees' meetings becomes more transparent. It ...
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Article
Accor staff take part in environmental programme
Accor enabled staff to spend a day away from work to carry out environmental work at a community nature reserve at Bethnal Green, North London.The firm which runs hotels such as Sofitel, Novotel and Ibis, allowed head office staff to tidy overgrown weeds and trees, make and install bird boxes, ...
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Article
Pensions Regulator should make better use of powers
The Pensions Regulator should make better use of its powers in order to avoid making the same mistakes as its predecessor the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority (Opra), according to The House of Commons Committee of Public Affairs' report The Pensions Regulator: Progress in establishing its new regulatory arrangements. The report ...
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Article
The Private Health Partnership acquires Medical Care Direct
The Private Health Partnership (PHP), part of Skipton Building Society Group, has acquired Medical Care Direct (MCD).This means that PHP, whose core business is private medical insurance, will enter the self-pay health plan market because MCD helps employees to identify consultants and hospitals that most closely match their specified criteria ...
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Article
Public sector pension costs to soar by GBP25 billion
The cost of new defined benefit (DB) pension benefits for public sector workers is set to soar by £25 billion this year.The Public expenditure statistical analyses 2008 from HM Treasury shows that the contributions paid by UK government departments and employees to public sector pension schemes are less than the ...
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Article
HMRC launches podcast to help with tax returns
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has released a video podcast to help employers file their end-of-year tax return online. The short film, which can be downloaded onto an iPod or viewed online shows the main features of HMRC’s online pay-as-you-earn system and demonstrates the registration process to viewers. Employers with ...
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Article
Morrisons improves accuracy of payroll process
Supermarket chain Morrisons is to roll out a computerised employee time and attendance system to its 375 UK stores.Using the new system, staff will use swipe cards and will optimise the firm's time-keeping processes over the store network. It will also assist the retailer's efforts to improve productivity and reduce ...
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Article
Trustees conflict with employers over longevity of DB pensions
Eight-out-of-ten trustees (80%) predict their defined benefit (DB) pension schemes will still exist in ten years despite 50% of employers claiming DB schemes will wind up in this time.According to the 2008 Aon Consulting Trustee Survey more than half of the 250 trustees surveyed (52%) thought that their scheme would ...
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Article
Nestle and other employers take up challenge to improve staff wellbeing
Employers including Nestle, AstraZeneca, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Zurich, Cadbury Schweppes and Ernst & Young have signed up to participate in the Global Corporate Challenge in a bid to improve employees' health and wellbeing.The challenge encourages staff to get fit by taking part in a virtual walk around the world over a period ...
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Article
Prime minister addresses abolition of 10p tax rate
Prime minister, Gordon Brown, is attempting to head off a tax rebellion following criticism from the Labour Party's backbenchers.Speaking on Monday, the prime minister's spokesman (PMS) said that a budget amendment had not yet been tabled but to wait and see what happened in parliament during the course of the ...
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Article
Smiths Group sells GBP 250m worth of pensions assets
Engineering firm Smiths Group is to sell part of its TI Group pension scheme worth £250m.The assets will be transferred to Legal & General, which will make regular annuity payments to the scheme.Smiths purchased the manufacturing company, TI Group, in 2000. The annuity purchase is an investment by the TI ...
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Article
Citigroup in DB scheme buyout deal
Citigroup has struck a £400m deal with Paternoster for the insurance firm to buyout the Powell Duffryn pension plan in what is reportedly the largest buyout deal so far this year.Citigroup acquired Powell Duffryn in January, and the defined benefit plan, which is currently a portfolio investment of Citi, has ...