How will you cope with auto-enrolment?
Everyone should be aware of auto-enrolment for employees through the government’s advertising campaigns.
The scheme is gradually being rolled out, starting with the largest employers and getting to the small/micro company sector in 2016 or 2017.
So how is it going?
The current companies going through the auto-enrolment process are medium sized (between 60 and 499 staff) – so pretty large with administration staff. The regulator has closed 917 investigations into employers in the last two years (since 2012) and just under 230 between April and June this year.
On 23 occasions the regulator has visited the employer’s offices/premises and enforced compliance.
These employers are quite a substantial size so they should have been able to cope with the administration quite easily.
How will SMEs cope?
Well the evidence from the medium sized companies is – badly!
In the words of Mark Leftly writing in the Independent, “auto-enrolment could wreak havoc on small businesses on which the economy depends.”
What are Clearways Accountants doing for their clients?
We will be going through the process ourselves as a “guinea pig” trial and setting up our scheme in advance. By the time our clients need to think about auto-enrolment we will know our way round the registration system and have streamlined our services.
We will be offering a fixed fee package for small companies who want assistance with meeting their auto-enrolment responsibilities.
For more information on auto-enrolment visit the Workplace Pensions website.