Financial advisors, accountants and employee benefits consultants (EBCs) are in for a busy time with 90 per cent of UK firms intending to seek advice and guidance to help understand the pension reforms from 2012.

The Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA), which is tasked with delivering the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), has conducted research among various sized firms, and found that 67 per cent of small firms will seek help from accountants, 56 per cent of medium-sized and 54 per cent of large firms from financial advisors, while 43 per cent of large firms will turn to EBCs. Among the latter, over three quarters of companies with over 10,000 employees said they expect to turn to EBCs for advice.

"For many small firms, the introduction of automatic enrolment will be the first time they will need to provide an employee pension and make contributions," commented Roy Porter, head of intermediary distribution at PADA. "Ensuring they have access to the correct information will be crucial in helping them comply with the reforms.

"As our research shows, accountants and other intermediaries will have an extremely important role to play in helping their clients. They also have a part in dispelling some of the myths around the reforms. We often come across employers who wrongly think that NEST is their only option for meeting their automatic enrolment duties when the scheme is one of the options available to help employers meet this duty."

Porter said his team would work with intermediaries around the country to inform them about NEST ahead of its launch in 2011.

However, SHILLING Communication has warned that communications run from a central body will be detrimental to scheme engagement.

Steve Sykes, a communication consultant with the pensions and benefits communications specialist, said that getting the message across on NEST and auto-enrolment would be a "huge challenge".

"For employees to understand and accept messages they should reflect company values and be made personal," he argued. "Communications should never be based on assumptions and with PADA delivering much of the suite of communications to employers this will inevitably be the case."

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