In today's podcast our resident financial expert Adrian Lawrence talks about a the living pension, this is a new concept which follows the example of the real living wage but applies to pensions.  The UK has a two tier pension system, the state pension which is fixed and based on a fixed amount for every year worked up to 35 years, the second tier is known as auto enrolment and is contribution based system currently set at 8% of a band of earnings.  5% comes from the employee (4% and 1% tax relief) and 3% from the employer.
The issue is that in order to get enjoy a good standard of living in retirement those contributions levels need to be 12% or more based on someone starting contributions at the age of 25.
The Government is already moving in this direction with a planned abolition of the earnings and age thresholds, but until the minimum contributions levels are increased this will be a long way short of enough to give a decent pension.
The idea of the living pension is for employers to lead by example and contribute more educating their employees to do so at the same time.
Reporting Accounts supports this approach and an increase in contributions to 12% provided it is phased in over a period of time to allow companies to adjust. Visit our website to learn more about our services and how you can find information on more than 4.8 million companies for free or on a pay as you go basis.