Does the Auto Enrolment Pension Scheme Effect You? The Essential Guide for Business

Although we are a nation that are living longer, we aren’t always great a preparing for this. There are different pension options open to people, but people are still overlooking these and not opting in when they should. The government have made changes to the way pensions work to make it easier for people to get enrolled. The automatic enrolment means that employees will now automatically be rolled into a pension and will have to opt out if they are not interested as apposed to having to worry about setting up their own pension scheme.

Things You Need To Know

Here are some key points on what you will need to know about the new scheme;

• If you are an employer with staff in the UK then it will affect you
• Certain staff must be enrolled into a pension scheme
• You must check your staging date & start implement changes from this
• You have to communicate these changes to your staff

When?

You’ll need to look at your staging date. You can check this online with your PAYE reference this will then indicate when you will start the scheme. If you have good reason you can delay this for 3 months, but generally you need to start your new pension scheme from your staging date.

Who’s Affected?

There is a criteria in place for those that will be affected. If you answer yes to all of the below, then you will be enrolled onto the scheme.

• Are you aged between 22 and the state pension age?
• Are you working in the UK?
• Do you earn £9440 or more annually?

People who are outside of this criteria can still ask to opt into the scheme, but this won’t happen automatically. The employer will have to enrol a member of staff who does not meet the requirement if they request.

What Should I Do?

You need to take advantage of the resources for auto enrolment that are online and read up everything you need to know about this new scheme (which starts to come into force from November 2013).

When you do start to make these changes you’ll have to communicate to each member of staff and let them know how they have been affected. You can’t do this as a group communication, each person needs to be contacted individually.

Getting Started

The first thing you should do is check what your staging date is – that way you can get organised and start everything off in plenty of time.

Don’t forget you’ll need to get in touch with your payroll department and let them know of any changes that are being made. Do this as soon as possible so that they can make any changes needed to handle the way requirements. They may also need to set up a way for you to monitor the ages and earnings of your staff to see who else on your payroll needs to be auto enrolled into a pension.

There are different resources online, such as the Department of Work and Pensions which can help you when it comes to setting up and modifying pension schemes. As there are different resources available you need to make sure you read up on everything that’s involved, so you know what to expect and when it is expected of you.