Automatic enrolment - workplace pension duties
Under the Pensions Act 2008, every employer in the UK must put certain staff into a workplace pension scheme and contribute towards it. This is called 'automatic enrolment'. If you employ at least one person you are an employer and you have certain legal duties.
What you need to do next will depend on whether you're about to start your automatic enrolment duties or whether you're coming back for re-enrolment.
Re-enrolment and re-declaration
Every three years you must put certain staff who have left your pension scheme back into it. This is called re-enrolment.
Whether you have staff to put back into your scheme or not, you must complete a re-declaration of compliance to tell the pension regulator you have met your duties.
Re-enrolment and re-declaration are your legal duties and if you don’t complete the required actions you could be fined.
We will keep you compliant
At David Howard we are pleased to confirm that we will complete all enrolments and re-enrolments, declarations and re-declaration of compliance for our clients.
We will make sure you meet your legal obligations by:
- Assessing your workers
- Enrolling your employees as required
- Providing the relevant pension letters for your employees
- Making the relevant pension deductions on the payroll
- Uploading the information to your pension provider
- Dealing with any opt in or opt out notices
- Completing the declaration of compliance with the pension regulator
Whilst we understand it can be frustrating for employers to enrol staff that you think will want to opt out, it is a legal requirement for you to do so.
Once an employee has enrolled into a pension scheme they are sent a welcome pack by your pension provider, which they should take the opportunity to read to make an informed decision about if they want to opt out of the scheme.
If you receive a notice from the pension regulator to advise you of your staging date, or re-enrolment date, please just forward this onto your pay clerk at payroll@davidhoward.co.uk who will deal with this as part of our standard payroll service.
Employers’ responsibilities:
- To contribute to the employees’ pension in line with guidelines
- Pay over the pension contributions to the Pension provider
- Employers must not encourage staff to opt out of the pension scheme
If you would like to understand more about your legal obligations around auto enrolment pension, please take a look at the Pension regulator website.
https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/employers/re-enrolment
Comments