All Employee Benefits articles in Web Issue – Page 374
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Telefonica, FirstGroup and Tesco among employee share plan award winners
The IFS Proshare Annual Awards were presented in London on 2 December.The awards recognise organisation’s commitment to delivering best practice, innovative design and creative communications for their employee share plans.The winners were: Global Payments UK for ‘Best new share plan’ Telefonica for ‘Best international share plan’ SSL International for ‘Most ...
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Female employees with shares in media, travel and leisure sectors most loyal
Female employees in the media, travel and leisure sectors have the highest levels of employee loyalty.Share plan registrar Equiniti's Workplace Loyalty Index also reveals a general increase in employee loyalty as a result of providing staff with shares in the organisations they work.The greatest loyalty boost can be seen among ...
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Article
Allstate Northern Ireland launches payroll Isa
Allstate Northern Ireland has launched a payroll individual savings account (Isa).The WorkSave Isa, which is a stock and shares Isa and is provided by Legal and General, has an annual allowance of £10,200 for the 2010/11 tax year. It has no income tax or capital gains tax.Employees can make regular ...
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Groupama Insurance's employees volunteer at primary school
Groupama Insurance's employees have taken part in a national campaign to educate children about healthy eating.As part of Groupama’s Business in the Community pledge, 16 volunteers visited Cardwell Primary School in Woolwich to promote healthy eating among 120 pupils.Throughout the day, Groupama employees and pupils planted a vegetable and herb ...
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Pension scheme members in the UK lose out on fees
Members of pension schemes are losing a large proportion of the value of their pension in fees, according to research commissioned by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manafactures and Commerce.The report, by David Pitt Watson, a pension fund manager and chairman of Hermes Focus Asset Management, Building ...
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Article
NAPF research: Employers should be able to choose inflation measure
Almost half (48%) of NAPF members which run a defined benefit (DB) pension scheme would use a new legal power to switch from inflation indexation from the retail prices index (RPI) to consumer prices index (CPI).A further 21% said they would not and 31% said they did not know, according ...
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BBS Consultants and Actuaries launches pensions services
BBS Consultants and Actuaries has launched two services designed to protect directors and trustees against fraud and support pension governance.Its mortality screening service helps organisations to establish the location of pensions scheme members, instead of relying on their families to inform trustees of their death.By working in conjunction with tracing ...
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Article
Comet switches voluntary benefits providers
Comet has switched providers for its online voluntary benefits scheme.The electrical retailer previously provided an online voluntary benefits scheme for two years with a different provider but felt that it was not getting value for money for its 10,000 UK staff.Its new online portal, which has been rebranded under the ...
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Article
Standard Life acquires Focus Solutions to enhance corporate wrap
Standard Life has bought software firm Focus Solutions as part of its efforts to enhance its corporate wrap offering in a deal worth around £42 million.By combining its own corporate wrap platform with Focus Solutions' technology capability and the software of Threesixty, which caters for independent financial advisors, Standard Life ...
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Article
Katharine Turner takes reward role at CIPD
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Reward (CIPD) has appointed Katharine Turner, practice leader of Towers Watson’s executive compensation team in the UK, as vice president of performance and reward.The elected appointment, which will last for two years, was made at the CIPD’s annual general meeting on 7 December.Turner said: ...
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Government launches consultation on pensions switch from RPI to CPI
The government has launched a consultation on linking private sector pension schemes to the consumer prices index (CPI).Pensions minister Steve Webb announced to the House of Commons that the government will not force private sector pension schemes to use CPI if they specify the retail prices index (RPI) as the ...
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Gender pay gap closes slightly
The gender pay gap has narrowed following a rise in the hourly pay of females, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).Its 2010 Annual survey of hours and earnings show that median weekly pay for full-time employees in the UK grew by 2.1% in the year to ...
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DWP appoints new chair to The Pensions Regulator
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has appointed Michael O’Higgins chair of The Pensions Regulator.He will take up his post from 1 January 2011 for a three-year term.David Norgrove, the current chair, will leave the regulator on 31 December 2010 when his second term in the post comes to ...
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Lincolnshire County Council appoints pension fund manager
Lincolnshire County Council has appointed Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners to manage its pension fund.The appointment follows an extensive investment manager search conducted with JLT Investment Consulting (JLT).The council was looking to appoint a manager which would invest 15% of its £1.2bn pension fund across the diverse options of alternative ...
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Insurance employees raise money for South African village
Employees from insurance providers Rias, Ageas Insurance and Fortis Life have helped to raise more than £50,000 towards building a children’s crËche in the village of Luphisi in South Africa.The ‘Fortissimos’ team took part in the final of the 2010 Times Leadership Challenge, along with teams from Innocent and TK ...
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Finance Bill 2011: Tax charge linked to Nest costs to be removed
Legislation will be introduced in the Finance Bill 2011 that will remove the tax charge on borrowing linked to the cost of setting up, managing or administering the national employment savings trust (Nest), subject to conditions.Those affected include employer, employees, Nest and its members, as well as other qualifying pension ...
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Article
Finance Bill 2011: Income tax to be payable on EFRBS
The government has confirmed that legislation will be introduced in the Finance Bill 2011 to tackle arrangements that use trusts and other vehicles to reward employees, which seek to avoid, defer or reduce tax liabilities.The legislation will ensure an income tax charge arises where a third party makes provision for ...
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Finance Bill 2011: Pensions annual allowance will be reduced
Legislation will be introduced in the Finance Bill 2011 to restrict pensions tax relief by reducing the annual allowance (AA) from £255,000 to £50,000 and the lifetime allowance from £1.8 million to £1.5 million.The changes to annual allowance will be fully enforced in the tax year 2011-12, where as the ...
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Finance Bill 2011: Government increases personal allowance and reduces basic tax rate threshold
The government has confirmed it will increase the personal tax allowance for those aged under 65 to £7,475 and reduce the basic limit to £35,000 from 6 April 2011.There will be no significant compliance costs for organisations from making this routine change to employees’ pay as you earn (PAYE) thresholds.The ...
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Morgan McKinley research: Half of Irish employers expect to pay bonuses
Half of the respondents (50.5%) of the Morgan McKinley Irish Employment Monitor expect to pay bonuses at the end of 2010.Those anticipating bonuses expect them to be quite modest, with 45% of managers expecting them to fall in the range of 1- 5% of base salaries, while 38% of respondents ...