Decisions: Pensions and Employee Benefits

What a year it has been in the world of pensions: a fitting metaphor for the market might be a sinking ship, and the myriad of companies that have been jumping from its decks by way of closing their final salary schemes those clever rats.

But escaping isn’t that easy. Not only are companies that have undertaken layoffs in 2008-09 now thinking about how to retain the staff they have left by incentivising them with various benefits or salary sacrifice schemes; incoming regulation will require companies to automatically enroll all eligible staff into a qualifying pension scheme from 2012 ­ and if companies fail in this or are seen to in any way be coercing staff into joining, there could be large fines coming their way.

There is renewed downward pressure on UK employers and on FDs in particular to be aware of their increased duties, to perform them, to report them and to spend money doing so. All this as we plough our way through a crippling recession!

In this, our latest Decisions supplement, our pensions correspondent Anthony Harrington sets out what those duties are for FDs and some ideas on how to comply without breaking the bank ­ and if you need to get some cash through the door for this, check out our piece on securities lending.

Download the full Decisions supplement in PDF format