pension and contract

Question

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

Answer 1

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.

Comments

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 !

Answer 2

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.

Comments

Yes agree its an excellent contract. I will have a good look over the weekend
Thanks Ann

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https://www.theforestreview.co.uk/article.cfm?id=164&headline=Auditor%20is%20asked%20probe%20town%20clerk%27s%20%C2%A3150,000&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2011


I’d avoid the LGPS like the plague

Answer 3

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!