Many workers don’t take up the pension plan their employers offer them. As they risk losing valuable benefits, the government introduced ‘automatic enrolment’ to make it an employer’s duty to enrol all their eligible staff into a pension plan.
Key things you need to do
Employers have a duty to automatically enrol eligible jobholders aged between 22 and State Pension Age into a qualifying workplace pension plan. We've highlighted your key actions, as well as creating a suite of support information.
- bullet Automatically enrol all eligible job holders into a qualifying pension plan. Individuals may choose to opt out, however, every three years, employers must re-enrol jobholders who've previously opted out.
- bullet Within five months of the date that your auto enrolment duties start, or within two months of your automatic re-enrolment date (usually every three years), you’ll have to make an online declaration of compliance to The Pensions Regulator. This will provide information on the schemes being used, and how you're meeting your employer obligations.
- bullet Provide information to your eligible and non-eligible jobholders about their pension plan within six weeks of the automatic enrolment date.
- bullet If you use an existing pension plan to meet the auto enrolment provisions, you'll need to ensure that it meets certain qualifying criteria and continues to do so going forward.
- bullet You'll also have to maintain records of the plans used to meet your obligations, details of automatically enrolled jobholders (including those that subsequently opted out) and voluntary joiners.
- bullet Have a board of trustees that have freedom to switch pension provider where it's in the members' interests. For contract-based plans, the pensions provider must have an Independent Governance Committee (IGC), or a Governance Advisory Arrangement (GAA) for smaller schemes.
- bullet Create a default investment arrangement which is in the members' best interests and keep this under review.
- bullet Ensure essential financial transactions are managed accurately and on time.
- bullet Assess the value of a plan in terms of costs and charges to members.
If you fail to comply with automatic enrolment and employee opt-in provisions, it is an offence punishable by imprisonment for up to two years, a fine, or both.
Our suite of supporting information
Contact us
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Workplace pensions
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Where can you find more information
Find out more information on providing workplace pensions for your staff.
Guidance and resources to help you in your role as an employer, including interactive online tools.
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