A recent poll of Positive Solutions IFA Partners showed that 95% of responders believed that businesses would miss their staging dates for auto-enrolment.
Those firms missing their staging date will face serious financial penalties possibly running into the thousands.
However, this needn’t be the case and, with support from an IFA, businesses can get on track now to ensure they meet their auto enrolment obligations.
Ian Clisby, Head of Development & Service of Positive Solutions, explained:
“Many small or medium sized enterprises have never had to consider pensions obligations before. It’s understandable that the process may well be very daunting for them, especially as they are unlikely to have in-house support. Our results show that it’s clear far more education is needed for businesses so they understand what their responsibilities are and what they need to do in order to ensure they are ready for their staging dates.
“What this means, though, is that there is a clear role for the IFA to assist these businesses throughout the auto-enrolment process. Choosing the right scheme, enrolling staff into a scheme and then managing the scheme on an ongoing basis are all time consuming and technical processes, and will need expert assistance.
Building on the success of our IFA Masterclass training programme, established earlier this year, Positive Solutions has announced a series of auto-enrolment Masterclasses for our partners to ensure that they are ready to meet the challenge of auto enrolment. We will be ready, and we will ensure that businesses are ready too."
