Employer Salary Sacrifice Scheme

This is a KAI Social Research contract intended to be let through Research and Insights DPS.

Employers and employees can gain relief on National Insurance contributions (NICs) if an employee agrees to give up some salary in return for employer pension contribution. Use of pension salary sacrifice has grown rapidly, and HMRC lacks the evidence to understand whether salary sacrifice is effective at incentivising pension saving and provides value for money.

HMRC currently has no insight into the behaviours and motivations of employers who offer their employees pensions through salary sacrifice schemes, as employers are not required to report the details of these arrangements to HMRC. HMRC can break down the use of salary sacrifice pension schemes on an individual (employee) level with Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) data, but there is currently no comprehensive data HMRC holds that breaks down the employer population by key characteristics, such as business size or industry.

In the first instance, to support advice to ministers on the future of such schemes, detailed and nuanced insight from qualitative interviews with employers who make use of this arrangement is crucial, to both inform future policy and lay a foundation for future quantitative research with this population.

We are proposing 50 qualitative in-depth interviews with employers who use pension salary sacrifice schemes to understand the experiences and motivations of these employers, enabling sufficient subgroup analysis by employer size and sector. These interviews will provide in-depth evidence on why salary sacrifice schemes are utilised, explore employer attitudes towards salary sacrifice specifically, and how changes to tax reliefs on pension salary sacrifice arrangements would affect their ability to meet or exceed auto-enrolment obligations.

A copy of the full business case can be provided if required.