Ben_B0m, Author at Corinthian

4 March 2021

Employers claims that certain roles can only be fulfilled from the office may themselves be made redundant with almost half (45%) of British office workers believing that the pandemic will result in a ‘permanent change’ to their employers approach to flexible working.

O2s ‘The Flexible Future of Work’ report, conducted by the telecoms giant in partnership with ICM and YouGov, found that 81% of respondents who anticipate a change are expecting to be able to work at least one day a week from home, with 33% aiming to increase their home working by at least three days a week after lockdown.

These potential changes to the work/life balance could also have a knock-on effect for geographical popularity. The poll showed that nearly half of city dwellers (41%) would consider a move to more rural locations and 63% of Brits would be willing to live up to an hour away from their workplace if the need to physically attend the office was reduced.

If the geography factor in recruiting is reduced, then competition to attract and retain staff could intensify post lockdown.

The findings of the report were released just days before Twitter announced that all its employees will be allowed to work at home ‘forever’.

“If our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen” said Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey.

Dr Heejung Chung, Reader in Sociology and Social Policy Director at the University of Kent, who is currently researching the impact of flexible working, said: “The UK has a huge challenge with the geographic distribution of wealth, and this exaggerates the problem of overpopulation in cities. If people could work from wherever they want to, without any fear of career penalty, this would create a huge opportunity for everyone.”

Natasha Newby, Head of Proposition Development commented “At Corinthian we have always understood the need, and indeed always have had members of our team that use, agile working. We know that this is important to support the business, our client’s business needs and of course to support our team and their home commitments. Lockdown has just highlighted the efficiency of flexible working.”

3 March 2021

The Chancellor confirmed in his budget earlier today that the furlough scheme will now run until September 2021.

The furlough scheme is also called ‘The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme’.

Employees on furlough will continue to get 80% of their salary for hours not worked, up to £2,500 per month.

From July 2021, employers will be asked to contribute more. The state will only then pay 70%, with employers expected to pay the remaining 10% of employee’s reduced income, and in August and September the state will pay 60% and employers will have to pay 20%.

You can continue work part-time while on furlough or be furloughed full-time, as now. Your employer can either put you on furlough full-time, or you’ll be able to work part-time and be furloughed for the hours you don’t work. Your employer will have to cover your wages at the normal rate for any hours you do work.

If you want to find out more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

25 February 2021

The Government recently announced plans to expand its dormant asset scheme to include assets from the insurance and pensions, investment and wealth management, and securities sectors. This money will be used to aid the Covid-19 recovery.

A dormant asset is defined as a financial product, for example a bank account, which has been left untouched for many years and which the provider, following industry best practice, has not been able to reunite with its owner. The dormant asset scheme is voluntary, which means business can choose whether or not to participate and how much they wish to transfer.

The Reclaim Fund, which was established in 2011, distributes the money from participating bank and building society accounts that has been left unclaimed for 15 years. So far, it has released around £150 million to help with the Covid-19 recovery.

There are around 30 banks and building societies that are included, but the expansion of this scheme will see the programme open up to City firms across the insurance and pensions, investment and wealth management, and securities sectors. This could potentially release a further £800 million to help assist the Covid-19 recovery.

This change comes after a 4-year review and public consultation process, which found there was widespread support for the scheme. The different sectors will each have their own guidelines, which will outline when assets can be moved to the Reclaim Fund. Reasonable efforts will need to be made to track down customers and reunite them with their accounts before they can be transferred to the Reclaim Fund.

This scheme will be led by the financial industry and backed by the UK government. The scheme will be focused on consumer protection, with the main priority being to reunite people with their lost funds. This will involve trying to find people who may have moved to a new house, for example, by tracing them via Royal Mail, email, telephone, a tracing service, or a credit reference agency.

That said, the scheme ran into trouble earlier this year when it was revealed HSBC had been warned by its compliance staff in 2017 that it was not doing enough to reunite customers with their money before transferring it to the scheme. While HSBC denied it wasn’t doing enough, it has since made changes to improve its dormant account policy.

Since 2011, the dormant asset scheme has contributed £745 million to charitable initiatives from dormant accounts that have been unattended for a minimum of 15 years.

In England, any money from the dormant asset scheme must be used for organisations and initiatives that are focused on young people, financial, or social investment. So far, more than £650 million has been invested in these causes across four different organisations:

1. The Youth Futures Foundation (£90m)

2. Fair4All Finance (£96m)

3. Big Society Capital (£425m)

4. Access – The Foundation for Social Investment (£40m)

In Wales, the funding is reserved for programmes that focus on climate change and supporting young people with disabilities into employment.

The Scottish government directs dormant assets funding to the Young Start programme, which aims to improve the physical and mental wellbeing of young people by supporting them to learn new skills and enter employment.

In Northern Ireland, dormant assets funding is reserved for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector.

The expansion of the scheme will mean hundreds of millions can be invested into good causes and it will play a vital role in the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Get in touch, if you’re worried you may have dormant assets, or you have lost track of your pension funds. We can help you use the government’s lost pension tracker to try and locate your lost pensions: https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details.

11 February 2021

I hope that you, your family and colleagues remain safe and well.

I am delighted to attach our Corinthian Benefits February 2021 newsletter, please do take a few minutes to have a read about our latest updates, from new colleagues we have welcomed through to a brief market commentary and some good news stories.

Should you have any questions or comments from this please do let us know.

Corinthian Benefits February 2021 newsletter

28 January 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant many people are adjusting to working from home and during this latest lockdown many parents again find themselves trying balance home schooling their children as well.

A new study by the University of Oxford suggests that the pressures of lockdown have increased the levels of stress, depression and anxiety in parents and carers.

The researchers found that between mid-March and the end of December 2020 parents and carers were:

· having difficulty relaxing

· being easily upset or agitated

· feeling hopeless

· lacking interest and pleasure

· feeling fearful and worried

· being more irritable, over-reactive and impatient

According to John Jolly, head of the charity Parentkind, the research highlighted “the additional stress and pressure that partial school closures place on parents”. He suggests that policymakers listen to the concerns of parents regarding the “safety and reopening of schools, the fair allocation of grades in the absence of exams, and remote learning provision”.

However, employers can also take measures to mitigate some of the stress parents are facing during these challenging times.

Here at Corinthian, the management team got together as soon as this current lockdown was announced and discussed what more we can do to support the mental well-being of our team members. We decided that with immediate effect we are giving our employees who are home-schooling two hours off every day to enable them to focus on home learning with their children.

If, like me, you are constantly being interrupted while on a Zoom or Microsoft Teams call, then take a look at our stay at home schooling guide. This is a great resource full of useful links to fun and educational websites, to help entertain your children when you need to get some work done.

I’ve also found it helpful to establish a routine and create a dedicated work area. For more resources and support while balancing working from home and home schooling, visit our website at: https://corinthianbenefits.co.uk. If you are an employer, ask yourself what you’re doing to support your employees during this difficult time.

As we are operating primarily remotely at the moment, we can offer a telephone call, or video Zoom to answer your questions. Please contact us at [email protected] Tel: 0845 241 9541

21 January 2021

We lost our beloved lurcher, Woody, on 2 November 2020 to kidney disease, aged 12. Heartbroken, we agreed not to get another dog for a couple of years.

Sonny arrived from Spain 7 weeks later on 20 December 2020.

There was just such a void in the house, and with another lockdown looming I found myself looking at dog rescue websites. Somebody mentioned rescuing from Romania, but I was drawn to the Spanish Stray Dogs website. Rescue dogs in the UK get a better life than those abroad whilst waiting to be rehomed and it felt the right thing to do, to give a good home to one of these poor souls.

I fell in love at first sight with Sonny on the website within minutes. He was my kind of dog. Black and tan, with film star good looks. They said he was about 3 years old and his name was Fernando. My husband agreed he was the boy for us – we renamed him Sonny and started the adoption process.

The charity Spanish Stray Dogs is excellent and really cares about their dogs, we had a virtual home visit and masses of advice and support on how to help these types of dogs adapt to life in the UK.

The date of his arrival drew closer – as experienced dog owners we know how much hard work a dog with behaviour problems can be, so we were quite apprehensive. The charity said he was a loving dog, but they also said a lot of the dogs can freak out at certain things and can leap 6 foot fences to escape!

We were instructed to pick him up from Cobham services at 1pm on 20 December. We duly arrived and soon two vans with “Animals in Transit” on the side arrived. Expectant new owners circled the vans to collect their dogs. We waited patiently while dogs were got out of the vans, one by one, and handed over.

As the excitement was building, my phone rang and a man with a Spanish accent informed me that Sonny was delayed by 2 hours. “Oh no, it’s ok, “I said, “he’s here now, we are just waiting for him to be got out of the van.” The man said he didn’t know what I was talking about and repeated the 2 hour delay.

My husband went over to one of the men getting the dogs from the vans.” Are you with Spanish Stray Dogs?” He replied, “No, Mate, we’re Greek Stray dogs!”

2 hours later Sonny arrived. He had been on the road for 30 hours and was shattered. Just as lovely in real life, we popped in the car and bought him home. He slept for 2 days solid, then he decided to let himself out of the utility room by opening the handle (street smarts) and came and laid beside our bed. He was home.

He is an absolute joy, a dream to train and already a much loved member of the family.

We are going to keep him bi-lingual, just for the fun of it. Buen perro, Sonny, te amamos!

12 January 2021

Significantly boosting employees’ communication about pensions could be as simple as changing the language used to describe them.

A survey, by Invesco, Nest Insight and maslansky + partners, found some common misconceptions about pension savings, and identified the barriers when it comes to engaging with workplace finances.

Its five key findings were that:

40% of the survey participants were unaware they could choose how much they pay into a pension
One in three participants thought AE contribution rates were the ‘recommended’ level of savings
68% of savers remain at the default saving rate
More than half (52%) of those saving into a pension were unaware of government tax relief on contributions
33% weren’t aware that their employer also pays into their pension.

This research suggests people rarely think about how much they are saving, and many don’t understand their different pension options.

Policy makers and pension professionals can make simple changes, particularly in the way they communicate with savers, to increase these engagement levels.

The research recommends that all communication follows four basic principles, that it dubs ‘the four Ps”: positive, plausible, plain spoken and personal.

Positive: Too often, messages focus on how savers are missing out, not what they can get if they act. ‘You can’ is more likely to engage than ‘you should’.
Plausible: People are pragmatic. A credible presentation of the benefits of saving is more likely to connect than visions of a dream retirement.
Plain spoken: Employees want to hear what they will get out, not what they put in. Outcomes need to be shown in pounds and pence, not percentages. An estimated income figure, rather than pot size, was found to be most helpful, enabling people to think about what lifestyle they will be able to afford relative to their current annual income.
Personal: ‘You’ is more engaging than ‘us’. People are more likely to want to make their own choices if they know they are on a ‘default setting’.

If you really want to improve knowledge and understanding of pensions, it is beneficial to state in plain English that people can contribute more into their pension, they can make a difference to their financial security when they’re older by rethinking contribution levels and that the contributions made when younger, work harder for people. For maximum efficacy, these statements should be backed by concrete examples using pounds and pence.

Below, we will go over some pension jargon, to help you gain a better understanding of what it’s all about.

Annual Allowance

This is the maximum amount of pension savings you can get tax relief on each tax year. In the 2020-2021 tax year the Annual Allowance is £40,000, for most people.

Annuity

A retirement income product that provides a regular income, either for life, or a set period of time.

Automatic enrolment

This means employers have to enrol their eligible workers into a pension scheme.

Defined Benefit pension

This pays a retirement income based on your salary and how long you have worked for your employer. Usually, this is only available from the public sector or older workplace pension schemes.

Defined Contribution scheme

Your contributions, and your employer’s contributions, are invested in the stock market. This builds up a pot of money, the size of which will vary based on the amount paid in, how long it is paid in for and how well the investments have performed.

Income drawdown

Also known as a Flexible retirement income product. This means you can use your pension to provide a regular retirement income. Although the income is not guaranteed for life, it allows you to change how much you take out, or to later switch the rest of your pension to a more secure retirement income product.

Lifetime Allowance

This is the highest value of pension savings you can build up before you incur a tax charge when you draw out your savings. For the tax year 2020-21 the Lifetime Allowance is £1,073,100.

Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA)

This is triggered if you withdraw money from your defined contribution pension. It means you will usually only get tax relief on your pension contributions up to 100% of your taxable earnings, or £4,000, depending on which is lower.

Self-invested Personal Pension (SIPP)

This type of pension holds investments until you retire. It provides the same tax relief as other pensions. It is more flexible as you can decide what you want to invest based on your retirement needs.

State Pension

This is the weekly pension payment you receive from the UK government when you reach State Pension age. The amount you receive is based on your National Insurance record.

Tapered Annual Allowance

Your Annual Allowance is reduced (‘tapered’) if your adjusted income goes over £240,000 or your threshold income exceeds £200,000.

Tax-free lump sum

You can usually take 25% of your pension fund as a tax-free lump sum.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of pension jargon and feel more confident about your pension fund. When it comes to pensions or otherwise known as retirement savings, make sure you do your research, so you can get the most out of your retirement.

As we are operating primarily remotely at the moment, we can offer a telephone call, or video Zoom to answer your questions. Please contact us at [email protected] Tel: 0845 2419541

6 January 2021

I hope that you, your families and colleagues remain safe and well, and that you were able to enjoy the festive break. Despite the current lockdown, here at Corinthian we remain optimistic that 2021 will bring brighter times than 2020, and to once again let you know that we are all working remotely and we are here to help you and your colleagues.

As you may be aware the Chancellor Rishi Sunak, announced some additional support measures for businesses particularly in the retails, hospitality and leisure sector that have been forced to close.

The Chancellor has made available an additional £4.6 billion for the hardest hit businesses in the form of a new lockdown grant. This is a one-off cash grant of up to £9,000 per business property to help businesses in the following sectors that have been forced to close:

Retail
hospitality
leisure

The funding is expected to benefit over 600,000 business properties across the UK and is allocated as follows:

£4,000 for businesses with a rateable value of £15,000 or under
£6,000 for businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
£9,000 for businesses with a rateable value of over £51,000

Local Councils will be given an additional £594 million discretionary fund to support other businesses not eligible for the above grant but that are affected by the restrictions. Those businesses should apply direct to their Local Authority for this.

I am also attaching an article (2 min read) that we recently published on our social media channels, which you may find interesting. As ever, please feel free to contact me or our Client Support team if you need us, and we will be happy to help.

Corinthian Vision 2020

4 January 2021

2020 began for Corinthian Benefits as a year full of ideas and boundless energy. Our opening campaign was aptly named ‘2020 Vision’ – What is your employee focus going to be in 2020?”. Little did we know what 2020 had in store… for us, our families, friends, colleagues and, indeed, the world as we were, and continue to be, rocked by Covid-19.

Prior to the global pandemic, ‘furlough’ was an unfamiliar term to most, if not all, of us. Very soon, however, we became well acquainted with it. Our lives were propelled online, our kitchen tables became multifunctional office desks, we ‘zoomed’ to work meetings and got to know our neighbours better over socially distanced drinks.

The virus, lockdown and its ever-changing rules gripped our nation, its impact on livelihoods, social, financial and mental wellbeing was more profound than we could have ever imagined. Our 2020 Vision, like the missions of many of our clients, had to very quickly refocus. Here, at Corinthian Benefits, we swiftly took stock. We analysed the constant stream of Government briefings, issued client FAQs to aid understanding, held webinars, dispensed literature and videos, developed in-depth budgeting and furlough calculators. Our sole aim: To support our clients and meet their needs in every possible way.

Our ‘Time to Think’ team was launched and, with the help of our Marketing Agency, Big Orange Media, we were soon producing and sharing weekly videos from our home offices. No topic went unexplored, from home-schooling and fun ‘Friendly News’ videos to a practical and insightful wellbeing series.

Despite being so physically distant, it became evident that employers and employees now need each other like never before. Business owners are spinning more plates than ever while striving to ensure their employees can work safely and efficiently; both parties are pulling together and working harder to get through the pandemic’s peaks and troughs.

Understandably, many people say they can’t wait to see the back of 2020. Yet, before we do, we must take a look in the rear-view mirror, take on board the changes we have effected; the progress collectively made in adversity. Now, together with our colleagues, let us look forward to 2021 with hope, renewed energy and mutual support for the businesses we work for.

In hindsight, our 2020 Vision was precisely what we envisaged. Corinthian was here, and will continue to be here, to help your business see things more clearly.

Corinthian. For now. For the Future

23 November 2020

We hope that you, your family and your colleagues are well.

Please find attached our Q3 2020 Investment Round Up Newsletter.

Growth across the UK economy had faded after a record recovery over the summer, raising fears of a renewed contraction in the last three months of the year.

Data released showed that UK GDP expanded by 15.5.% in July-September, the fastest increase on record as the economy emerged from its spring shutdown. However, growth slowed during the summer, with GDP expanding by just 1.1% in September – weaker than economists expected. That followed 9.1% in June, 6.3% in July, and 2.2% in August.

The return of children to school boosted activity in the education sector. Housebuilding also continued to recover, while business strengthened for lawyers and accountants after a poor August.

However, pubs and restaurants saw less business, after the ‘eat out to help out’ scheme ended, and accommodation saw less business after a successful summer.

We continue to watch the markets and economy together with developments around the second lockdown measures easing.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.