PAYE – Auto-enrolment in pensions
Statutory Changes for October 2012 – Workplace Pensions Reform
From 1 October 2012, changes to the pensions law (the Workplace Pensions Reform) started to affect employers. The changes mean that employers now have to enrol their employees into a pension scheme and pay into that scheme.
The date when the new law is ‘switched on’ for employers is known as the ‘staging date’. The staging date for employers varies according to the number of employees they employ. The earliest staging date was October 2012 for the largest employers (those who employ 120,000 or more employees). Employers will then gradually be brought on-board (from the largest to the smallest) until approximately 2017 by which time all employers will be operating under the new legislation.
The main things employers must do are:
- provide a qualifying pension scheme for their workers;
- automatically enrol all eligible jobholders into the scheme;
- pay employer contributions for eligible jobholders to the scheme;
- tell all eligible jobholders that they have been automatically enrolled and they have the right to opt out if they want to do so; and
- register with Pensions Regulator and supply details of their qualifying scheme and the number of people they have automatically enrolled
If you need advice on this important new legislation please don’t hesitate to get in touch.