Work Place Pension Charges

[Lance]

I spoke to the Pension Regulator last week and we do qualify for auto enrolment, so our accountant was right.

That 5 employee rule is pre staging date. After the staging date its auto enrolment

Quite happy with my accountants advice just a little concerned about charges hence my original post!

from Nest's website

"It’s completely free for employers to use, with no charges to set up NEST or for ongoing administration."
NEST's charges I What is NEST I NEST Pensions

[Bert007]

I saw that about the NEST charges being free.

My accountant advised me there is still a monthly extra fee even if you opt out. This covers the software fee, which is a monthly charge, and time for the set up and advice regarding auto enrolment.

Quite happy to pay if they are doing work for me otherwise why should I.

[Bert007]

Auto enrolment | Business Advisers | Working out your client's costs | The Pensions Regulator

Also found this link

[SueEllen]

I spoke to the Pension Regulator last week and we do qualify for auto enrolment, so our accountant was right.

That 5 employee rule is pre staging date. After the staging date its auto enrolment

Quite happy with my accountants advice just a little concerned about charges hence my original post!

The situation is made complex by you regarding the officers of your company as employees. (You have to very careful of the language you use when discussing a company that is used for contracting.)

The majority don't so are exempt from auto-enrolment and just had to send a letter in.

Anyone Lance has pointed out you can do it yourself.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Whilst NEST is free, that's an irrelevance. What is not free is the time value of doing

(a) declaration of compliance
(b) nominating a scheme
(c) communicating with eligible employees
(d) dealing with opt outs assuming all employees opt out, and you cannot coerce them to do so.

A one person or one person and spouse company (typically a "PSC") with no other employees generally can opt out of the whole shenanigans, a to d above, with a simple email to TPR.

In your case as you have non officer employees, you can't wholesale opt out of Auto Enrollment, and therefore the choices are:

- You do it
- your accountant / payroll bureau does it and charges
- your accountant / payroll bureau does it and absorbes the cost

And that is a commercial issue of course, and one for negotiation.

For OP, if there are no regular deductions then a monthly fee seems possibly unfair, although without knowing the details it may be that the provider has decided not to charge on a transactional basis and just to inflate all charges to cover cost of AE - there is some merit in that if it's fair and equitable across their whole client base.

My advise to OP is to ask the provider to justify the charge and work, and, if so inclined, seek to negotiate to reduce costs and do some if it in house, or have a fixed set up fee. However if the provider has simply inflated all costs across the board on a simple employee number stratified tariff, then the answer may be no.