Mix 96 Managing Director Max Hailey was joined this week by our Managing Director Philippa Batting for a show all about pension auto enrolment.

The law now states that every employer must automatically enrol workers into a workplace pension scheme if they:

• Are aged between 22 and the State Pension age
• Earn more than £10,000 a year
• Work in the UK.

If you don’t do this, you will be fined.

One piece of information that may catch people out is that if you have a worker who is self-employed but the Pensions Regulator deems them to work solely for the benefit of your business, they have to be enrolled too.

Great for workers, challenging for businesses

This is a great thing for workers, but brings with it many things for businesses to consider. As Philippa told Max, this is one of the reasons the phones at Buckinghamshire Business First are ringing off the hook at the moment.

The changes can be tough on businesses, with some owners not feeling able to hand out pay increases because they are having to absorb extra costs implementing auto enrolment. These extra costs can include outsourcing their payroll duties as they don’t feel confident enough to tackle the issue themselves.

Buckinghamshire is full of experts in pensions and payroll. You can find these experts on the new and improved business directory.

You can also listen to the podcast of this Monday’s show to hear from Paul Mes of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and Colin Morton from Richardson’s Financial Services to get their expert insight on auto enrolment.

The important thing, both said, is to get engaged and stay engaged. Don’t think that it’s someone else’s responsibility to deal with. It’s yours.

So take the following two steps:

• Find out your staging date for auto-enrolment by using the Pensions Regulator’s auto enrolment calculator. All you’ll need is your PAYE reference.
• Listen to Paul and Colin’s expert advice on what to do with regards to auto enrolment on the Buckinghamshire Business First podcast on Mix96.

Tune in on Monday 4th April at 7pm on Mix96 for the next instalment of the Buckinghamshire Business First radio show that will focus on exporting.