All articles by Ian Silvera – Page 11
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HMRC announced new company car advisory fuel rates
HM Revenue and Customs has announced a change to its company car advisory fuel rates. The change relates to some petrol and diesel cars.The rates for all vehicles from 1 June 2013 are as follows:Petrol1400 cc or less to pay 15p per litre.1401 cc to 2000 cc to pay 17p ...
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Fit notes have positive impact on absence
The fit-note system is having a positive effect on reducing long-term sickness absence, according to research by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and the University of Liverpool.The study, which collected data from 58,700 fit notes distributed to 25,000 patients between October 2011 and January 2013, was conducted by the ...
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Pension members inactive about investment management
One in five (21%) respondents take an active role in managing their pension investments, according to research by Capita Employee Benefits. The research, conducted among 3,000 employees, also found that 27% of respondents have opted for the default funds provided by their employer.The research also found:52% of respondents do not ...
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Liability-driven pension investment increases to £446bn
Liability-driven pension investment (LDI) increased by 11% in 2012, according to research by KPMG Investment Advisory.The KPMG 2013 LDI survey, which questioned 30 institutional managers, found that LDI now covers £446 billion of pension liabilities, with 686 UK pension scheme mandates now employing LDI.However, the provision of LDI remains dominated ...
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Tribunal says employers could set retirement age
The Employment Tribunal (ET) has judged that compulsory retirement might still be justified in some circumstances.On 30 May the ET ruled on the Leslie Seldon case which was brought because Seldon was required to retire at age 65 from the partnership of the law firm Clarkson Wright and James.At the ...
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Employers are submitting RTI despite confusion
A majority (84%) of employers are now submitting pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) in real time, but confusion still remains about the real-time information (RTI) reporting system, according to research by payroll provider Sage. The monthly Sage omnibus survey, which questioned more than 680 employers, also revealed that four out of five (81%) ...
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Could employee cooking lessons catch on?
A British cookware organisation is teaching its US employees how to make a Yorkshire pudding.ProCook, which has stores in Maine and New Hampshire, have created one-hour training courses so that their sales staff can tell customers the difference between the British favourite and the American popover (light hollow roll made ...
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ArticleJLT sees 9.3% average auto-enrolment opt out
EXCLUSIVE: JLT Employee Benefits has recorded a 9.3% auto-enroloment opt-out rate among its employer clients.The employee benefits adviser used BenPal, its benefits management platform, to help 50 large employers auto-enrol their employees.The organisation assessed 287,712 candidates, enrolled 11,162 employees and saw 1,037 employees opt out of their employer’s auto-enrolment pension ...
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Shadow pensions minister condemns 'flawed' pensions market
The shadow pensions minister has called the current workplace pensions market flawed.Labour’s Gregg McClymont, MP, (pictured), writing in the political blog Left Foot Forward, said that the pensions market does not operate like a normal market where the consumer exercises choice.He added: “It’s the employer, not the employee, that chooses ...
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Origen Investment Services to sell pensions admin businesses
Origen Investment Services is to sell its pensions administration businesses.Its specialist self-administered pensions service business is to be sold to consultancy Barnett Waddingham, while its self-invested personal pension (Sipp) business is to be transferred to Sipp provider and administrator Suffolk Life.Origen Investment Services made the decision to exit from the ...
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ArticleDisparities in local council pension fund fees
There are disparities in the fees that local council pension funds pay to their fund managers, according to research by the Financial Times (FT).The newspaper’s analysis of pension funds’ annual reports, which was conducted for the FT by consultancy Investor Data Services, revealed that some councils were paying three ...
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Employee engagement a priority for employers
Research published by YouForce in May found that 79% of respondents rated employee engagement as a high priority, but only 41% had a strategy in place. Of the 41% that do have a strategy, 30% said it improves employee performance and 13% said it improves retention.The Benefits Research 2013, published ...
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Shares for rights changes could cost employers more
The government had to make several concessions to its original proposals before the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, commonly known as ‘shares for rights’, was passed by Parliament.Under the new legislation, employers will be able to allow staff to swap some of their employment rights, including unfair dismissal and redundancy rights, ...
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HMRC confirms VAT payable on pensions consultancy charges
HMRC also said organisations that supply advice and assistance to employers around the implementation and ongoing administration of contract-based DC schemes must establish two matters to determine the VAT treatment: what is the nature of the service supplied and who is the recipient of that service?Employers will normally be able ...
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Auto-enrolment opt-out rates lower than expected
Before the auto-enrolment roll-out began last October, it was predicted employers could expect opt-out rates of 20% to 30%.But McDonald’s Restaurants, for example, has seen only 2.4% of its hourly-paid employees and 2.7% of its salaried staff that were auto-enrolled on 1 January 2013 opt out.The fast-food retailer has 37,000 ...
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Buyer's guide to childcare vouchers 2013
As well as enabling working parents to afford childcare, this perk can also offer significant tax and national insurance (NI) savings for employees and employers.Childcare vouchers have been around since the late 1980s, but the current tax exemption was introduced only in April 2005.The amount an employee can receive in ...
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European Commission drops pension solvency requirements
The European Commission has dropped proposed solvency requirements from an overhauled pensions directive that will be put forward this autumn.The Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provisions directive, which is aimed at improving the governance and transparency of pension schemes in the European Union (EU), will no longer include the issue of ...
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Pension liabilities up more than 60% in five years
UK pension liabilities have increased by more than 60% in five years, according to research by KPMG.The professional services organisation’s 2013 Pensions accounting survey, which had 305 respondents, found that this increase, measured over the period since January 2008, is due primarily to falling yields on AA corporate bonds, which ...
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Staff celebrate engagement with tattoos
We reported earlier this month that US-based real estate agency Rapid Reality offered employees a 15% pay rise in return for them getting a tattoo of the organisation’s logo.Young, technology workers in Bangalore, India, however, clearly missed this story. These high-fliers tattoo their bodies with their employer’s logo for nothing.The ...
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Pay budgets expected to increase
More than half (53%) of respondents expect their pay budgets to increase by the end of the year, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).Its Reward management survey 2013, which surveyed senior reward and benefits professionals across 444 private and public sector organisations, found that ...