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Tuesday 28th April 2015

Auto Enrolment

 Does one detect an air of panic amongst our small business community? Certainly there have been the phone calls of enquiry to the AB+ offices.

Whereas we aim to give a comprehensive HR Service to our clients – delving into the realms of pension provision is not an immediate strategic aim. However AB+ does realise the problem that our clients face. We hope that this information will be helpful for you to set up your own auto enrolment.

The National Pension Service is creaking, so whereas public employers and large corporations have pensions they do not represent the vast number of small organisations that have employees who unless they have saved for their retirement are relying on their State Pension. But the State Pension is not able to keep pace with modern living requirements.  The solution is to get everyone who is employed to contribute to a private pension.

The key date is February 2018 – not a date to be taken lightly because there are a number of phases to the auto enrolment process.

Staged dates for enrolment – well at least this makes sense, not everyone trying to enrol at the same time. The stage is related to the number of employees an organisation has and the Pension Regulator website (www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/‎) will provide you with the information as to which date by which your organisation has to enrol. This is a mandatory requirement so make sure you are registered a good few months before your staging date. 

Every employee needs to be registered – if at a later stage they decide to opt out that is their choice, but as an employer you must not be seen to promote this.

Think about how you are going to cope with this additional burden- this is not a two week process and you need to allow at least six months lead in to your staging date to be ready for compliance.

Anyone who works for you potentially is entitled to a Pension. The rules are: Existing and new employees have to be enrolled- some agency workers may be exempt depending on who pays them). This means anyone from age twenty two to retirement age who earns £10,000 + needs to be enrolled. (www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/‎).

Putting a scheme in place is a requirement – there are many private pension providers, or the National Employment Saving Trust [NEST] (www.nestpensions.org.uk/) can provide a compliant scheme. NEST is an online service and it may take time to work through their processes.

The choice of scheme you put in place is your decision: Minimum requirements of the selection of a scheme that offers an attractive, marketable, appeal for attracting future employees.

Whatever you decide to do it is keeping your employees engaged, informed and consulted that will result in the best choice of a scheme for you all.