Opinion – Page 4
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OpinionLiam Goulding: Are employers and trustees working in harmony?
Employers have been facing unprecedented challenges in recent years, and this year in particular as a result of Covid-19 (Coronavirus). With the potential for significant reductions in cash flows and deepening funding strains for defined benefit (DB) schemes, trustees will be scrutinising employers more closely than ever in order to ...
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OpinionJeremy Harris: Pensions remain an attractive form of investment
Covid-19 (Coronavirus) and lockdown have threatened livelihoods across all age groups. Constraints on current income may lead workers to defer financial planning decisions.They may be disinclined to invest following recent falls in markets. This reluctance may be most marked with pensions, which generally cannot be accessed until age 55.However, except ...
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OpinionRosalind Connor: Is the Corporate Governance and Insolvency Act 2020 a problem for pensions?
The Corporate Governance and Insolvency Act 2020 received Royal Assent at the end of June, having been pushed through Parliament in record time. There had been much concern in the pensions world that this would damage the position of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes run by employers facing uncertainty, or ...
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OpinionRosalind Connor and Aneliese Sweeney: Regulator's guidance for consolidators is just the beginning
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has published guidance for defined benefit (DB) consolidators, setting out the framework for their authorisation and regulation.Specific consolidator legislation had been expected to be included in the Pension Schemes Bill which has now passed through the House of Lords. However, following the omission of consolidators from ...
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OpinionSonya Fraser: A closer look at guaranteed minimum pension conversion
The statutory mechanism for guaranteed minimum pension (GMP) conversion has not been widely used in practice, in part due to uncertainties around how the requirements can (or should) be met.However, now that the decision in the Lloyds case has made it clear that schemes must equalise for the effect of ...
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OpinionNeil Bowden: Employers can manage pension costs when emerging from lockdown
The first step to mitigating pension costs might be a simple one: surprisingly, according to government figures published in May 2020, 40% of employers have not claimed for the national insurance and pension contributions elements available under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS).If an employer is concerned about their pension ...
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OpinionEmma Martin: Keep calm and do not panic about retirement plans
With Covid -19 causing market volatility and financial uncertainty, employees due to retire this year may be worrying about the impact of the pandemic on their retirement savings and retirement plans. The key message for these individuals is to keep calm and do not panic.Employees should be reassured that if ...
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OpinionMurray Keir: Furlough and the impact on salary sacrifice and death-in-service benefits
The government introduced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (GJRS) in March to tackle the effect that Covid-19 (Coronavirus) is having on employment in the UK. Great strides have been made in getting to grips with the operation of the GJRS in practice to provide employees with a salary while they ...
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OpinionJoanna Sharples: Why responsible investment could be the pensions engagement message members need
Assets held by UK defined contribution (DC) pension schemes are expected to increase substantially over the next decade. That vast sum of money will support the retirements of millions of UK employees over the next 30 years and beyond.Over the last few months, stock markets around the world have suffered ...
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OpinionAmy Davies and James Edmonds: Should the burden of pensions move to the employee?
Employers in Australia make significantly larger contributions to their employees’ pensions than their UK counterparts. Thanks to the Superannuation Guarantee, Australian employers pay 9.5% of an employee’s earnings to their pension pot. In contrast, the minimum contribution rate for UK employers under the automatic-enrolment regime is just 3% for eligible ...
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OpinionNigel Peaple: Employers need to show staff the value of pension contributions
With staff working from home and businesses under financial pressure from the Coronavirus lockdown, the government has provided two vitally important measures to support workplace pensions during this crisis.The first provides support for employers to meet automatic-enrolment contributions for workers. Grants paid to employers under the Coronavirus job retention scheme ...
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OpinionTim Middleton: Pensions support for employers and staff is essential during the Covid-19 crisis
The Covid-19 (Coronavirus) crisis has had the most serious peacetime impact on society for over a century. With most of the population subject to lockdown, employers have scaled down their activities or suspended them altogether. This has seen an estimated nine million employees placed on the government’s furlough scheme and ...
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OpinionCarolyn Jones: Careful consideration is needed before making pensions decisions
The uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic means it is a crucial time for employers to support the financial wellbeing of staff. When it comes to concerns about pensions, employers should encourage staff not to panic and make rushed decisions without understanding all of the facts.For employees with defined ...
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OpinionChristopher Nuttall: Should the burden of pensions move to the employee?
Employers are familiar with the automatic-enrolment duties that oblige them to put certain staff into a pension scheme and contribute towards it. These duties began in 2012. But what comes next?The majority of schemes used in the private sector are defined contribution (DC) schemes in which the contributions, together with ...
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OpinionSam Smethers: Is pay transparency radical?
Sometimes the simple and obvious thing can still be perceived as radical. When it comes to pay transparency, the idea that we might find out what our colleagues are earning is, at one level, radical because pay secrecy is the norm in most workplaces and talking about pay is taboo. ...
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OpinionTony Pugh: Delegate to accumulate – how to win back time by changing pension schemes
If you asked most employers what their biggest business priorities are for this year, I am confident that ‘spending more time on the pension scheme’ would not feature very highly.In fact, Aon’s UK DC pension survey 2020, published in February 2020, showed that 35% of employers with their own trust-based ...
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OpinionPaul McGlone: Government priority should be to better look after pension savers
Consensus is often difficult to come by, but in a recent Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) poll on what the government's pension priorities should be in 2020, agreement was not hard to find. Based on what our members said, the priority is ultimately to better look after pension savers.We asked ...
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OpinionAlice Honeywill: The value of additional contributions in closing the gender pension gap
While we await government reforms on pension policy and wider industry change to tackle the gender pension gap, I find myself asking one question: what action can be taken right now?More specifically, what steps can employers be taking to make small, yet potentially effective, changes?The most widely discussed initiative is ...
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OpinionKate Gardner: What does the landmark veganism ruling mean for employers?
In a major step forward in employment law, a tribunal has ruled that ethical veganism is a philosophical belief, meaning that an employee could rely upon veganism as one of the nine protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act 2010.While this is great news for employees, how will it affect ...
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OpinionClaire Goodby: Ministry of Justice ruling could have significant impact on pensions
In December 2019, the Supreme Court upheld part-time judges’ claim for equal pensions treatment, a ruling that could have a financial impact on schemes and sponsoring employers.Prior to this case, claims for unfavourable treatment towards part-time workers needed to be brought within three months of the end of the part-time ...