A new study commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will examine whether employees who are already enrolled in a workplace pension can be encouraged to save more by agreeing to have their contributions automatically increased annually.

The DWP is planning to evaluate a small number of case studies with employers who offer and contribute to pensions in their workplace, such as group stakeholder pensions. The first will involve Legal & General. Employees participating in the study will have their monthly contributions increased annually on a voluntary basis. They will know when increases are taking place and by how much. They will be able to opt out, or start and stop increases.

Independent researchers are to be commissioned to undertake the evaluation and it is hoped to publish initial findings towards the end of 2006. As part of the study, Legal & General has already launched a pilot scheme with their own staff and will be feeding anonymised data to DWP.

...back to 24 November 2005


Source:
DWP Research Looks at Encouraging Higher Workplace Pension Contributions

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Under a proposed new European Commission Directive, European citizens will be able to move jobs and country without losing work pension benefits. Under the "Portability of Pensions" Directive, workers switching jobs or countries will no longer have to worry about substantial loss of work pension benefits. In the EU15, one worker in three changes jobs every five years and 9% of employees change employer each year.

The proposal is designed to reduce the obstacles to mobility within and between Member States caused by present supplementary pension schemes provisions. These obstacles relate to: the conditions of acquisition of pension rights (such as different qualifying periods before which workers acquires rights), the conditions of preservation of dormant pension rights (such as pension rights losing value over time) and the transferability of acquired rights. The proposal also seeks to improve the information given to workers on how mobility may affect supplementary pension rights.

...back to 27 October 2005


Source:
Under a new proposed European Commission Directive, European citizen can from now on move jobs and country without losing work pension benefits
Portability of pensions

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