Up to 14,000 businesses with fewer than 30 employees will be faced with the Government’s new pension rules. These smaller firms now reach their staging date to automatically enrol their employees in a workplace pension scheme.
The FSB is encouraging businesses to make sure they are aware of this important milestone and understand what they need to do to comply with the scheme.
The FSB wants the Government to continue the support for small businesses to meet the challenge of auto-enrolment.
Bill Fox, Regional Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses said: “Auto-enrolment for large and medium sized businesses has been a success so far. However, the extension of auto-enrolment to hundreds of thousands of small businesses presents a major challenge.
“A recent survey showed that 25% of respondents ‘hadn’t thought about it yet’ when asked about implementing pension auto enrolment. We are therefore running seminars where local businesses can find out the facts and prepare themselves. Small business owners are not pension experts and a significant number will not have any staff saving into an existing workplace pension scheme.
“The FSB believes that compliance with auto-enrolment must be low cost and entail minimal administrative burden. We still remain concerned that this won’t be the case for many small employers, and that many will face additional administrative as well as payroll costs. It is crucially important that businesses deal with this sooner, and do not leave it until the last minute.”
Small businesses seeking to find out their staging date, and what they need to do to comply with auto-enrolment can do so on the Pensions Regulator’s website: http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/employers/know-your-staging-date.aspx