Brace yourselves for stakeholder pensions all you North Yorkshire bosses - but, whatever you do, don't cut and run, urges MARK PEPPER, partner at Grosvenor financial consultants of Swinegate, York.

THOSE who run away from giant waves - even tidal waves of bureaucracy - risk being flattened.

Even standing still is a recipe for being swept off your feet. No, better to follow the old maxim - and dive aggressively into the onrushing wall of water...

And for thousands of businesses in York and North Yorkshire that pulsing giant of a wave is just four days away in the shape of the Government's new Stakeholder Pensions regulations which come into effect at the start of next month..

Unless employers have fewer than five on their payroll or already offer an acceptable pension scheme to their employees they will be legally required to make an approved stakeholder pension available to their workforce.

Meet the deadline for making the arrangement by October 8 this year or risk fines as high as £5,000 for sole traders and £50,000 for limited companies. A fierce wave indeed.

By the way, don't feel too complacent if you believe that you have set up a pension scheme already because it may not comply with the new rules...

Of course we must all nod at the correctness of the intention behind the legislation - namely to encourage the five million or so people without pension provision to save for their retirement, but you can easily forgive business people, especially those who run small firms, from fearing new snares of red tape.

After all, luring you away from your main core business is the task of consulting with eligible employees and organisations like trade unions, offering payroll deductions from employees' earnings if needed; and maintaining records of employees' deductions and payments to the scheme.

A suitable scheme must "meet a number of conditions confirmed with the Inland Revenue and the Occupational Pension Regulatory Authority (OPRA) and employers can check its registration and whether it meets legal conditions by beaming into a register on the Internet at www.stakeholder.opra.gov.uk" (Try saying that in anything but a monotone!).

And don't forget, folks! You have to send to the stakeholder provider the names of your employees, their national insurance numbers and contributions, together with any contributions you may decide to make yourself - but more on this later.

Then there are the deadlines: those contributions must be paid to the provider within 19 days at the end of each month in which the contributions are made. Any mispayments will have to be reported by the stakeholder provider by OPRA in which case you risk a fine...

And all those employers who piously say: "Not us - we have a scheme in place already" I say - are you sure? For example, if your staff aren't offered membership to an occupational pension scheme within 12 months of joining a company, or your employee is aged more than 18 years or has more than five years to go before retirement, then contractual arrangements for that occupational pension scheme will have to be reviewed.

What is more, think again if your existing group personal pension plan means that as an employer you are contributing less than three per cent of their basic earnings; or if the scheme isn't offered as part of the contract of employment.

Think again if onerous charges are imposed should the staff member want to transfer to another scheme; or if recruits are not allowed to join the scheme within three months of joining the company.

Think again if your scheme does not allow payments to be deducted from the company's payroll system.

All right. Stop moaning. There is nothing you can do about it except act on it.

And you may want to dive into the wave by turning a burden into an advantage. Waterhouse, the chartered surveyors in Bootham, have done just that, by not only preparing to comply with stakeholder legislation, but planning to make contributions towards the pensions themselves.

The company gets tax relief. Their employees get extra benefits tax free. And their customers benefit from a happy, more stable workforce which works its way back into the bottom line.

Whichever way you tackle that wave it is an opportunity for firms to review fully their existing schemes and, surprise, surprise, there are organisations like financial advisers and financial institutions keen to get involved and if necessary, administer the scheme in a way that brings advantages to everyone.