In a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity, in the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, lies the pit of man’s fears and summit of his knowledge: imagination.Imagine this, an isolated country shrouded in fog and rain and 1.3 million naïve innocent businesses going about their day-to-day activities, trading, recruiting and trying to expand. They are guided and assisted by the ranks of the nation’s pensions, insurance, and payroll industry, along with an army of advisers, and are safe in the knowledge that, as long as they provide an auto-enrolled pension scheme for their employees, the terrible beast known as the Regulator will stay silent.
The inhabitants of this little realm lived happily so for many years. Until one year, in a great and hallowed hall in the south of the country, a group of leaders summoned the Regulator beast and prodded and taunted it, until the beast was so enraged and reactive it unleashed itself across the land seeking out business after business to salve its wounded conscience and prove its worth. Starting slowly the beast began to go after more and more businesses attacking more and more each quarter.
Eventually, All Saints day arrived and the beast was attacking a new business every 5 minutes, firing compliance notices and fixed penalty notices hither and thither. Without knowing it, in no time at all, over 10% of all businesses in the realm had been subject to one of these notices or fines. The mass ranks of insurers, pension and payroll providers offered no safety, and seemingly offered no solutions, as the numbers of employers facing the beast each month increased.
How would it be placated? Who would survive unscathed? Many worried who would be next. Would it be them? Would it be their neighbours? So many seemed to be unsuspecting.
A small number tried to fight the beast. Around 800 valiantly entered the Tribunal but few if any ever came out victorious, the beast vanquished them all.
In the damp and foggy land would normality ever return or would the beast succeed in getting all the businesses?
On behalf of all the pension’s team we would like to wish all our contacts a happy Halloween. And if you are a business owner or HR person involved in pensions please don’t have nightmares, we would like to reassure you that the above is only a work of fiction as this could never possibly happen in real life……or could it?
We have a myriad of solutions to your pension issues so please do contact us if you want to sleep soundly and keep the Regulator beast at bay.
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