Paperwork for transient workers biggest auto-enrolment challenge
26 February 2013
Keeping up with the administration work for the sheer volume of transient workers who join and leave a business in a year’s time poses the greatest challenge for employers of temporary and contract labour in getting to grips with new pensions auto-enrolment legislation, predicts Derek Kelly, managing director of the Parasol umbrella company.
Tue, 26 Feb 2013Keeping up with the administration work for the sheer volume of transient workers who join and leave a business in a year’s time poses the greatest challenge for employers of temporary and contract labour in getting to grips with new pensions auto-enrolment legislation, predicts Derek Kelly, managing director of the Parasol umbrella company.
The legislation is aimed at boosting pension savings among the UK population and requires UK employers to automatically enrol jobholders into and contribute to a pension scheme. However, workers can choose to opt out. The staged programme began last October.
Speaking to a London audience late last week at the Meridian Business Support Summit on Pensions Legislation, Kelly said that 20,000 temporary and contract workers work through Parasol in any given year, earning average wages of £30k and operating in the IT and education sectors among others. They average a 13-month stay with Parasol, he said. Of this workforce, Kelly said about 500 workers have their own pension scheme.
To manage the pensions auto-enrolment, Kelly said, Parasol had had to invest “a small fortune” – £300k – in software.
Panellists at the event agreed that numerous questions remain about the legislation’s implementation across the temporary recruitment sector, including provisions for shift work. At the same time, they also agreed that employers on the whole were delaying dealing with the requirement.
Other panellists included Paul Horan, principal consultant, Grant Thornton; Colin Jackson, employee management system, Safe Computing; Tim Johnson, principal, Tim Johnson Law; David Lunt, head of relationship management, NEST; and Fiona McKay, managing director, Seminars & Solutions. DeeDee Doke, editor of Recruiter/recruiter.co.uk, chaired the event.
The legislation is aimed at boosting pension savings among the UK population and requires UK employers to automatically enrol jobholders into and contribute to a pension scheme. However, workers can choose to opt out. The staged programme began last October.
Speaking to a London audience late last week at the Meridian Business Support Summit on Pensions Legislation, Kelly said that 20,000 temporary and contract workers work through Parasol in any given year, earning average wages of £30k and operating in the IT and education sectors among others. They average a 13-month stay with Parasol, he said. Of this workforce, Kelly said about 500 workers have their own pension scheme.
To manage the pensions auto-enrolment, Kelly said, Parasol had had to invest “a small fortune” – £300k – in software.
Panellists at the event agreed that numerous questions remain about the legislation’s implementation across the temporary recruitment sector, including provisions for shift work. At the same time, they also agreed that employers on the whole were delaying dealing with the requirement.
Other panellists included Paul Horan, principal consultant, Grant Thornton; Colin Jackson, employee management system, Safe Computing; Tim Johnson, principal, Tim Johnson Law; David Lunt, head of relationship management, NEST; and Fiona McKay, managing director, Seminars & Solutions. DeeDee Doke, editor of Recruiter/recruiter.co.uk, chaired the event.
