Automatic enrolment
Navigating the pension journey for you
Between now and 2018, every employer in the UK will need to have a workplace pension scheme in place and start enrolling workers into it. Many will be automatically enrolled and others will need to be enrolled if they request it. A whole new generation of savers will start putting money into a pension – often for the first time.
This also means that every employer with at least one member of staff now has new duties. These include enrolling any employee who is eligible into a workplace pension scheme, and making contributions for each employee into that scheme.
This is called automatic enrolment. It’s called automatic because it’s automatic for your staff – they don’t have to do anything to be enrolled in your pension scheme. But it is certainly not automatic for you as an employer. You need to make sure that all of your eligible staff are enrolled into your pension scheme.
Even if you already pay contributions into a pension scheme for your staff, you still need to check if it is suitable for automatic enrolment. So this is what you need to do:
- Set up your company pension scheme.
- Enrol your staff into the scheme. Contributions to the scheme will come from three places. You will make deductions from their pay, you will make employer contributions and the government will contribute via tax relief. But you will need to make sure that you contribute the right amount.
- Once the process is completed, you’ll need to let the Pensions Regulator know you’ve met your automatic enrolment duties by completing a Declaration of Compliance.
The whole process could take up to 12 months to complete. Remember, automatic enrolment is your legal duty and if you don’t act you could be fined. Thankfully, Dunhams are here to help and we can guide you through the tasks you need to complete.
Extra services available from Dunhams
We would be more than happy to provide individual advice to any of your employees if required. This could be anything from investment or financial advice while they are paying into the scheme, to retirement advice for employees considering their options on drawing benefits.