Thursday, 30 May 2013 09:40
Scottish Life offers consultancy charging on pension scheme set-ups
Scottish Life will offer consultancy charging on pre-auto-enrolment schemes, despite Steve Webb's plan to ban the practice.
The firm said this would affect 'pipeline' schemes and new arrangements but that once the staging date was reached, Scottish Life would offer alternative remuneration. For many schemes the firm was working on, the employer's staging date for auto-enrolment was over two years away. Staging date is the date when firms will have to offer an auto-enrolment scheme to all of its employees.
Pensions Minister Steve Webb MP announced earlier this month that he plans to get rid of consultancy charges in auto-enrolment schemes. Consultancy charging takes fees for employer advice from employees' pension pots.
Ewan Smith, managing director of Scottish Life, said: "We've always seen consultancy charging as being an important part of building the transitional 'stepping stones' to a fee-based business model, where employers pay the adviser directly.
"Obviously the CC payments will need to be stopped no later than the employer's auto-enrolment staging date. Alternative remuneration arrangement (for example, fee payments) would then need to be put in place."
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A 'capacity crunch' is expected in 2014 when a large volume of smaller firms will reach their staging dates. Mr Smith said setting up plans well in advance could avoid this affecting firms.
He said: "Scottish Life has already set up a number of new scheme- with many more in the pipeline- on a CC basis. With many of these, the employer's staging date is more than a year or two in the future.
"The scheme members are starting to build up their pension savings, with the help of employer contribution, earlier than auto-enrolment legislation requires. And the employer also benefits by having a qualifying scheme in place well ahead of any 'capacity crunch' issues."
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The firm said this would affect 'pipeline' schemes and new arrangements but that once the staging date was reached, Scottish Life would offer alternative remuneration. For many schemes the firm was working on, the employer's staging date for auto-enrolment was over two years away. Staging date is the date when firms will have to offer an auto-enrolment scheme to all of its employees.
Pensions Minister Steve Webb MP announced earlier this month that he plans to get rid of consultancy charges in auto-enrolment schemes. Consultancy charging takes fees for employer advice from employees' pension pots.
Ewan Smith, managing director of Scottish Life, said: "We've always seen consultancy charging as being an important part of building the transitional 'stepping stones' to a fee-based business model, where employers pay the adviser directly.
"Obviously the CC payments will need to be stopped no later than the employer's auto-enrolment staging date. Alternative remuneration arrangement (for example, fee payments) would then need to be put in place."
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A 'capacity crunch' is expected in 2014 when a large volume of smaller firms will reach their staging dates. Mr Smith said setting up plans well in advance could avoid this affecting firms.
He said: "Scottish Life has already set up a number of new scheme- with many more in the pipeline- on a CC basis. With many of these, the employer's staging date is more than a year or two in the future.
"The scheme members are starting to build up their pension savings, with the help of employer contribution, earlier than auto-enrolment legislation requires. And the employer also benefits by having a qualifying scheme in place well ahead of any 'capacity crunch' issues."
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