If you are an employer of more than five employees then you will already be aware of your legal duty to give your employees access to a stakeholder pension, or, a similar alternative. This legal obligation has been in place since 2001, nearly ten years. For employers who do have more employees then looking into stakeholder pensions is actually a very sensible idea. There are currently forty six different stakeholder pensions that an employer can use, but it is up to the employer themselves to make that decision.

There are, however, some employers that can be exempt from the legal obligation to provide access to a stakeholder pension. Some examples of this include: If an employer has less than five employees, the employer offers an alternative pension scheme, the employer offers an occupational scheme, but, even if the employer does not legally have to provide their employees with easy access to a stakeholder pension plan they can do so if they wish.

There are also employees who, as individuals will not be eligible for a stakeholder pension scheme, even if the employer has offered it as part of the contract. Here are some examples of people who may not be eligible for a stakeholder pension plan: people who have worked for the employer for less than three months in a row, people who are a member of the employers occupational scheme, people who are under the age of eighteen, people who had the option to join the employers occupational scheme but declined the offer, and people who have restrictions from HM Revenue & Customs.

If you are an employer and you want to look into stakeholder pension schemes for your employees then there are several things that you will have to do. This includes: choosing a stakeholder pension scheme that is registered by the Pensions Regulator, talk to your employees about what they can expect, make sure that you give your employees the contact details of the stakeholder pension scheme that you choose to go with, inform your employees about payment deductions, record all payments, and many other things.

The points mentioned above are just the basic things that you are going to need to do if you have to give your employees access to a stakeholder pensions scheme. They are all very important, but they all barely scratch the surface. To get the full details of what you will need to do, it is best to go onto the DirectGov website, as this will provide you with all of the information that you will need to make sure that you have done everything correctly. As long as you go about everything in the correct manner then it will turn out fine, and your employees will feel more financially secure for the future.