Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Pensions minister joins Friends of AE Bristol

25th Sep 2014
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

The second Bristol region Friends of Automatic Enrolment meeting featured an appearance from one of the most important figures in pensions: Steve Webb.

The CIPP-led Friends of AE movement recently spread its regional wings, and with the establishment of the Bristol chapter just last month, it was quite a coup to get the minister of state for pensions around a table to thrash out the latest issues.

Luckily for us Bristolians, Steve Webb is the MP for Thornbury & Yate which is just north of the city in South Gloucestershire.

The venue once again was Racks Bar & Kitchen in Clifton, but this time word had got around and we were upgraded to a much larger space to accommodate more than 30 people crowded around tables.

The Bristol monthly get-togethers are pretty informal affairs, i.e. sitting round a table in a public house over some lunch with everyone pitching in. Luckily Steve Webb embraced this format, steering clear of formalities or PowerPoint presentations and instead formed part of the roundtable debate.

With just a couple of hours, thankfully introductions were kept succinct, and just as co-chair Steve Brice posed a question about whether payroll was coming to the table quickly enough, Webb kicked things off with his take on the AE programme and how it has progressed so far.

“The magic number is 90%” Webb said. “So far 4.4 million people have enrolled and nine out of ten employees automatically enrolled into a workplace pension are choosing to stay in the scheme. Most people know it’s important but haven’t got round to it. We assumed two-thirds would stay in, so the evidence is people are grateful.”

Webb also spoke about his department’s efforts to introduce the charge cap from April earlier this year, the three-month deferment period and raising the threshold to £10,000. “But do we pause at £10,000 or link to the tax threshold?” he suggested.

Webb added: “We would love to go straight to 8% contributions, but that would lead to massive opt outs. We’re overcoming decades of inertia. Two million now have a pension who didn’t have one before. We’re not getting there fast enough but we’re in for the long game,” he said.

Steve Preston of The Pensions Administrator suggested that more education was needed on the employee side and that the message for many just wasn’t getting out there.

Picking up on the regulator’s communication strategy, Caroline Burgess of Burton Sweet agreed that the message was not reaching the very small employers.

Matthew Lee of Bishop Fleming added: "The small guys are saying ‘how do we get out of this’ and ‘what’s in it for me’.”

Clifton Auto Enrolment’s Anthony Carty went further and suggested going down the compulsion route: “Even if employees are earning less than £10,000 they still need to be assessed as part of the workforce,” he said.

Steve Webb explained that the “I’m in” marketing campaign was designed to evolve throughout the overall AE programme. “Our communications strategy changes as we go through,” he said.

Steve Brice added that there was still time to educate and encourage.

However, his co-chair Andy North, publisher of AccountingWEB, was disappointed with the level of engagement with small businesses and the accounting profession.

“TPR’s engagement with accountants has been woeful,” North told the pensions minister. “During the introduction of RTI [Real Time Information] HMRC, love them or hate them, did their bit to alert accountants to the coming changes, whereas TPR has left a vacuum."

There was also agreement around the table that HMRC could in fact do more within the AE initiative.

Andy Agathangelou of the CIPP said that a lot of businesses have previously had no contact with TPR but they have with HMRC.

“They’re [HMRC] in a fantastic position to do something about this. We’re looking for them to play a part in this. Government bodies should do something to help with this, to collaborate.”

Another suggestion was that the first letter people receive about AE should be co-branded with HMRC.

Steve Webb reacted positively to this: “If it’s not being read then we need to know about it”.

Attendees agreed that the marketing around the programme was not hitting the mark.

Agathangelou outlined the CIPP’s communications approach around AE and suggested the regulator take a ‘tough love’ approach, but added: “It’s a tough balancing act for TPR and DWP.” He also highlighted the importance of moving towards a common data standard, likening it to Brunel’s standard railway gauge, “Something new that everyone can buy into.”

Alex Rowson from Qtac Solutions explained why it was so important: “From a software perspective we can’t afford to maintain such a vast interface. It would be nice to get auto enrolment onto a right start so there isn’t a plethora or standards. With that [a common data standard] we can still run a payroll bureau,” Rowson said.

In addition to this, there was much discussion about the role of accountants in this all.

Agathangelou said: “Even if they don’t see a short term gain, they should be part of the process. It’s about working out which bits and how comfortable you are. You’re either involved, not involved or part of a team that solves the problem,” he said.

Ed Holt added that the ICAEW had been “very unhelpful” on the matter on how far accountants should get involved.

A lively discussion on ‘duty of care’ followed, but with our allotted time up, Steve Brice wrapped up the meeting and the conversation continued at the bar.

The next Bristol Friends of AE meeting will take place on 14 October.

Last month AccountingWEB launched the No-one gets left behind campaign to alert as many accountants as possible to the obligations implied by auto enrolment. Read our simple eight-point statement which sets out the auto enrolment facts you need to know.

Tags:

You might also be interested in

Replies (2)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

By SteveB@LPAES
26th Sep 2014 13:02

Friends of Auto Enrolment

Rob,

Thanks for your support and the support of Accounting Web in publishing the events in Bristol.

As you say next meeting is 14th Oct...anyone interested in attending please contact me at LP Auto Enrolment Solutions Ltd in Clifton or speak to Andy North of Accounting Web...It would be good to see as many as we can at the next one as Andy North wants to try to book One Direction to try to top the numbers of our Steve Webb event! 

Thanks (0)
By Henry Tapper
26th Sep 2014 13:55

Leadership

What seems to be driving the frustration of some at the meeting seems to be the lack of balance in the approach of the Pension Regulator and ICAEW.

I would hate to see Neil Esslemont's timesheets for the last three months, he seems to be doing 20 hours a day and the tPR AE enforcement team are doing a great job. ICAEW seem happy with accountants involving themselves in the operational aspects of auto-enrolment - especially as they touch payroll and contributions.

The frustration is with the lack of leadership shown relating to workplace pensions. There is a lack of clarity in tPR and ICAEW's guidance to accountants which is leading to a "noli me tangere" approach (don't touch pensions with a bargepole!).

Since the employer will be investing a substantial chunk of its revenues o these pensions and as the only issue for the member is the outcome of these pensions, it seems logical that the pension choice, implementation and management is taken at least as seriously as the mechanism for auto-enrolment.

Until we establish how accountants can help their clients with these important decisions, frustrations shown by Andy North ad Ed Holt will continue.

We at www.pensionplaypen.com think that the employer's duties must include an engagement with the pension decision and some ongoing oversite of its management and (where skills and knowledge aren't on hand elsewhere) accountants should be emplowered to help select, implement and manage the workplace pension itself.

 

 

Thanks (0)