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Financial Advice: Independent & Impartial

Lansdown Place are a nationally available firm of Independent Financial Advisors based in Bristol. We have specialists available in all of the mainstream areas of financial planning and can call in specialists in tax, property and legal services where required.

At the core of all of this sits a common-sense approach to financial planning for real people. Just like you.

Private Wealth

We will guide you through the maze of the financial world and offer solutions that suit your personal circumstances. Whether it is a simple insurance plan to protect family and income, building an investment portfolio, or a complex Inheritance Tax issue, we can help.

Corporate Solutions

Financial planning for business encompasses everything from getting your commercial funding right, making sure the business is protected if any thing happens to your key players, looking after your staff benefits and providing for pensions.

Latest pension capacity concerns for employers auto enrolling

Please see below the latest in a long line of commentators who are concerned that employers will leave their Auto Enrolment planning too late and may face additional problems over and above the legislation itself.
 
A message that Lansdown Place have been sending for some time now is “even if your staging date is not for some time understand the magnitude of your own problem sooner rather than later!”
 

Governments latest enrolment figures since July 2012!

Well here we are now nearly ten months into the governments new Auto Enrolment regime and it would appear that nearly 84 employers with a total of 2 million employees have passed through the systems so far.

Early opt out statistics

Monday morning breaking news stories continue to provide yet more feedback from employers that have already gone through their Auto Enrolment Staging dates; we are beginning to get a useful picture of the experiences (good and bad) from the perspective of both employers and their employees.

Auto Enrolment has little to do with pensions it appears!

As I was travelling on the train yesterday I came across the quote below form one of the largest employers who have already had to deal with Auto Enrolment for their employees. We have read many stories about Asda and the Opt Out rates along with Morrissons and how they have worked hard on their communications strategy. We have also seen headlines detailing that Lloyds bank have spent nearly £1 Million on getting this project up and running so far.
 

Call centre capacity 2

You will remember that following our bout of snow I sent a note out about the levels of member engagement that the insurers and employers would be able to deal with should Auto Enrolment continue in the same way as it has started.
 
Since then I have seen any number of articles that tell us that not only would it appear that it is going to carry on but it may indeed increase!
 

Call Centre Capacity

As we all wake up to our Monday morning, snow not as fresh and clean as it was on Friday morning but still there. I am sure like many other I spent most of Friday working from home as my office was closed due to the weather.
 

Tips for Auto Enrolment from the people who have done it!

Well here we are in a nice bright shiny new year!
 
I do hope that everyone had had a good break and has returned to work refreshed and ready to go.
 
In reading the first set of press releases I came across this note on Auto Enrolment tips and thought that it might be useful for those who are due to embark on that journey this year or for your clients and contacts who are about to embark on this journey.
 

A last minute TPR announcement

So, not only are employers to be mindful of how they pay for their support and advice (see my previous newsletter www.lansdownplace.co.uk/blogs/who-will-be-able-foot-bill-advice-2013-and-beyond) as this may increase the cost of pension contributions but now The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is telling us which size of scheme we can use once Auto Enrolment has already begun! Not how much the scheme can charge by the way but how many members it has.
 

Who will be able to foot the bill for advice in 2013 and beyond?

The Government are in the 11th hour of the final discussions about the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), specifically its small print, and I see that the they have now launched an urgent review into how this will work with Auto Enrolment.
 

One month in and are there signs that maybe Auto Enrolment is going to need more thought on the part of employers?

We are one month into the new regime that is Auto Enrolment and things appear to be going well, or are they? Most companies with a staging date of the 1st October 2012 will be using postponement so will not actually enrol their first eligible jobholder until Christmas/January and already we are hearing stories of over capacity for both existing and new pension providers.
 

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