NEST Pensions: Home Page for Nest Pension Advice

Pensions legislation in the UK is to undergo the biggest change for decades.

For the first time, UK companies will be compelled to offer employees a pension contribution and each company will have to have a pension in place into which employees will automatically be enrolled. This could be an existing or new pension scheme (like a Group Personal Pension or Stakeholder pension) as long as it "qualifies". If you do not have a pension scheme or do not introduce one to suit your requirements then you will be able to adopt the Government's scheme, known as the National Employment Savings Trust, or NEST.
 

We have produced an employers Strategy Pack | A guide to pension auto-enrolment and NEST pensions. Please request your free copy via our our sister website autoenrolment.info by clicking on the image or click here.  It takes just a minute or so to give us your details and your free guide will be emailed to you by return.

This site is designed to help you understand the impact this will have on you or your company, plan and manage the change. TISCO Financial Planning Limited has no affiliation with NEST Corporation, the body responsible for the running and overseeing of the NEST Pension, nor is it authorized by, associated with or sponsored by NEST Corporation. [NEST Corporation's website can be found at www.nest.org.uk]

These new auto-enrolment obligations will impact on employers of all sizes, and will be phased in between 2012 and 2016.

Employers will have responsibility for paying contributions into a pension – both from them and the employees – as well as communicating with staff and ensuring the pension scheme is compliant.

The hope is that these new auto-enrolment obligations will help the estimated 7 million workers who are not putting money aside for their retirement to start saving for tomorrow, today.

It is important to note that there is no obligation for companies to to offer the NEST pension scheme to employees. Whilst the NEST scheme is available to all employers it has features which make it suitable for some and less desirable to others. It is also possible to introduce your own pension scheme for some employees and the NEST scheme for others.

Communication and Resources – Engage with us and we will help you with this process. FREE resources such as our strategy pack and access to regular webinars will keep you up-to-date with all the latest pension Auto-Enrolment and NEST pension news.

Consultation, Analysis and Review – Whether it is checking your current scheme, or detailing what will be necessary to meet your obligations, we can help.

Strategy and Implementation – Once you have a plan, we can help implement it. Together
we can help control costs and design a suite of relevant services.

This site is designed to provide UK Employers with a guide to their pension auto-enrolment responsibilities, the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST or Nest Pensions) and information on how the introduction of autoenrolment and NEST will fit in with the overall UK pension Reform strategy planned for 2012. We are also pleased to provide initial consultation and if necessary personalised advice and strategies for employers to address their NEST obligations. If you would like to take advantage of this service please complete the contact us 

Background information

As part of an overall pensions reform strategy the UK Government is introducing major changes to UK pensions from 2012.

The full proposals include reforming the UK State Pension to make it simpler and more generous as well as formally extending people’s working lives.

The Government estimates that about seven million people are currently under saving for retirement and a major part of the reform is the Government’s ideas for making it easier for these people to save for retirement. The proposals will have wide ranging effects across every field of UK business as the onus will be put on employers to help encourage more people to save:

• From October 2012 UK employers will be required to automatically enrol employees into a ‘qualifying workplace pension scheme’. This auto enrolment could be to your existing company pension scheme if it meets certain criteria. If it does not meet the criteria or if you do not operate a company pension scheme then your employees will be enrolled into NEST, a simple, low-cost pension scheme being introduced by the Government.

• Between October 2012 and 2016, depending on the size of company, all UK employers will be required to contribute a minimum of 3% of each employee’s eligible earnings into a pension, assuming the employee does not “opt out”. This is intended to incentivise them to start saving towards their retirement. Employees will need to pay a personal contribution of 5% (4% with a further 1% tax relief being added) to make the minimum contribution 8%.

This leaves UK employers with a pivotal role and the Government is proposing key measures designed to minimise the burden on them:

• Compulsory employer and employee contributions will be phased in.

• Simple, straightforward, qualifying criteria for existing Company Pension Schemes, meaning many existing schemes will meet them, perhaps with minor changes.

• A ‘light-touch’ but effective compliance regime for new employer duties such as automatic enrolment.

Employers can use the links on the left to learn more, see our In The Press section for all the latest news on NEST or register now for our free NEST Strategy pack. Alternatively sign up to our Free NEST newsletter on the right hand side and we will email you with a regular summary of major developments.

Pension Auto enrolment and NEST pensions are being introduced in the UK and will effect all Employers by 2016.