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0 votes
Any advise on pensions please.  We we need to use the local council one.  It is rather expensive, especially for small parishes.      I have been looking at NEST.  May I also ask do we need to follow the model contract of employment  for clerks or can we write our own contact of employment
Thoughts please

Thanks

Ann
by (1.5k points)

3 Answers

+1 vote
Best answer
We took specialist advice when it was time to enroll our staff into a workplace scheme and found The People's Pension better than NEST.  Best to stick to a template contract unless you are going to take employment advice on anything bespoke you come up with.  It could come back to haunt you further down the line.
by (2.1k points)
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As a Clerk - its worth knowing the Council wants to 'invest' in your future. The LGPS is very expensive but it is a percentage of salary. personally its a huge incentive to go the extra mile . I work for three Parish Council with Precepts of £7500 , £7800 and £55,000 - all three agreed to the LGPS when I joined. In addition I do salary sacrifice and buy additional years of LGPS as its such a good pension. At the end of the day you get what you pay for !
+1 vote
Do look very closely at the cost of LGPS. It can be very expensive for a small parish. In particular investigate what it would cost if your clerk were to leave before retirement. There can be a large exit penalty. Are there any other employees that are likely to be included?

NEST is certainly one of the ones I would look at, but there are others. Perhaps employ a financial consultant for this? We use another company (name escapes me now) but it has caused a lot of work getting the right figures out of them sometimes. In hindsight NEST would have probably been easier to administer.

On the contract - why write your own when a good model exists? Have you taken any legal advice on suitable contracts? Make the contract simple and have a side policy document that can be varied over time without having to renegotiate the contract every time.
by (5.2k points)
Yes agree its an excellent contract. I will have a good look over the weekend
Thanks Ann
0 votes
Use the model one as a starting point but you can adapt it to suit your local requirement.   Parish Councils pay a higher contribution rate into the LGPS compared to Principal Authority employees but do get better benefiits than the NEST scheme. Horses for courses!
by (34.9k points)

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