CIPP survey to establish payroll?s opinion on the Labour proposals to lower the automatic enrolment threshold

02 June 2014

Last week we told you about Labour’s proposed policy to lower the automatic enrolment earnings threshold.

In a speech to the Resolution Foundation, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves said that essential elements in Labour’s ambition are ensuring that those who can work are in work, that work always pays and that our social security system rewards responsibility and contribution. She also said that nowhere are these values more important than in the area of retirement and pension provision.

The Labour Party has been setting out practical policies that can turn this vision into reality in the twenty-first century and Reeves’ speech was all about the important part that pension reform has to play in that. The two challenges she set out were ensuring that everyone is able to save, and making sure that all savers can get value for money from those savings.

On the first point regarding the ability to save, the focus was on making it easier for those in low paid and irregular work to save and how Labour wants to bring those 1.5 million workers who are below the automatic enrolment earnings threshold, back into workplace saving. Promising to consult with employers, trade unions and pensions experts about the best way of doing this, but saying that she believes we should be broadening, not narrowing, the scope of auto-enrolment enabling more people on low and modest incomes to save for their retirement.

The CIPP would like to understand how this will affect businesses, and payroll in particular, so we can feed those views through to the Labour party. We have created a short survey which should take you no more than five minutes to complete. The survey closes on 20 June 2014 and we would be very grateful if you could spare the time to let us have your views on this suggestion.