In December 2006, the former government published a White Paper outlining its workplace pension reforms, including proposals for NEST (the National Employment Savings Trust) \u2013 previously called Personal Accounts. This led to the Workplace Pension Reforms set out in the Pensions Act 2008. These reforms aim to increase individuals\u2019 savings for retirement.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0new, simple, low-cost pension scheme,\u00a0NEST will be introduced as part of the workplace pension reforms. The new employer duties under the government\u2019s workplace pension reforms will be introduced over a four-year period from 1 October 2012. The staggered introduction of these duties is known as \u2018staging\u2019. Broadly speaking, the new duties will apply to the largest employers first, with some of the smallest employers not being affected until 2016. As part of the new duties, firms will be enrolled into NEST.<\/p>\n
The former government established NEST as part of pension reforms aimed at tackling a lack of adequate pension savings among low- and middle-income UK workers. The NEST\u2019s investment strategy will be low-risk and there may be a possibility that, after five years, savers will be able to move their money out of the NEST into other pension schemes.<\/p>\n
The reforms include the stipulation that from 2012 employers either pay a minimum contribution of 3 per cent into the scheme or automatically enroll workers in existing pension vehicles. NEST will launch its scheme for voluntary enrolment in the second quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
NEST will be a trust-based defined contribution occupational pension scheme. It will be regulated in\u00a0the same way as existing trust-based defined contribution schemes and will provide people with access to a simple, low-cost\u00a0pension scheme. The\u00a0charges\u00a0are a\u00a01.8 per cent charge on\u00a0the value of each contribution to cover NEST\u2019s start-up costs, and an annual management charge of
\n0.3 per cent of the value of the fund.<\/p>\n
The new two-part charge by NEST will work as follows: if a member has a fund of \u00a310,000, they will pay \u00a330, due to the 0.3 per cent annual management charge; if that same member makes a monthly contribution of \u00a3100, including tax relief, they will pay \u00a31.80 on the sum, due to the 1.8 per cent contribution charge.<\/p>\n
There will be an annual contribution limit of \u00a33,600 (in 2005 earnings\u2019 terms) into NEST. This will be uprated by earnings year on year.\u00a0This limit will be reviewed in 2017.<\/p>\n
Workers will be automatically enrolled into the default investment fund but there is likely to be a choice of investment funds, which may include options such as social, environmental and ethical investments. Those not wishing to make an investment choice will stay in the default fund.<\/p>\n
Employers will need to automatically enrol their eligible workers into a qualifying pension scheme and make contributions to it.\u00a0 Workers will be able to opt out of their employer\u2019s scheme if they choose not to participate.<\/p>\n
Workers who give notice during the formal opt-out period will be put back in the position they would have been in if they had not become members in the first place, which may include a refund of any contributions taken following automatic enrolment.<\/p>\n
Anyone who joins NEST will be able to continue to save in the scheme even after they leave the workplace or move to an employer that does not use NEST. The self-employed and single person directors are not eligible for auto-enrolment but will be able to join NEST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A\u00a0new, simple, low-cost pension scheme In December 2006, the former government published a White Paper outlining its workplace pension reforms, including proposals for NEST (the National Employment Savings Trust) \u2013 previously called Personal Accounts. This led to the Workplace Pension Reforms set out in the Pensions Act 2008. These reforms aim to increase individuals\u2019 savings… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}