Are you an employer?

Have you heard about Auto Enrolment? Know what your Staging Date is? 

Do you want to find out what you need to do?

Follow our blog over the next few months as we help you demystify what your obligations are.

For now, we will give you a general overview on Auto Enrolment, Staging Date and The Pensions Regulator.

1. Since 1^st October last year, depending on the company’s PAYE reference, employers have had to start thinking about auto-enrolling eligible employees and make mandatory employer contributions into a qualifying workplace pension scheme.
2. Each employer will be given a date from which they must auto enrol, known as their “staging date” by the Pensions Regulator.
3. Employers will have to decide if they will be using a defined-contribution pension scheme or the National Employment Savings Trust (Nest) as their qualifying pension scheme.  It’s important to get professional advice to understand what these options involve. Getting it wrong can be problematic and expensive.
4. From your Staging Date, employers must auto-enrol eligible employees in a pension scheme when they reach the income tax threshold but contributions will kick in only from the employee threshold for national insurance contributions.
5. As an employer, you can operate a three-month postponement window for all employees (newly eligible existing employees or new employees), so that employees on short-term contracts do not need to be auto-enrolled in a pension scheme, but remember, they can opt in voluntarily during the postponement period.
6. Your Staging Date will depend on the number of employees you have in your PAYE scheme on 1 April 2012. You can find out your Staging Date by visiting The Pensions Regulator website here . You will need to have your Employer PAYE reference number to hand.
7. The larger the employer’s PAYE scheme, the earlier the staging date.

As a Payroll & Human Resources Specialist, we can help you navigate the new requirements. Our sister company Bridgehead have specialist advisers who offer help and advice on pension schemes. If you have any questions about Auto Enrolment, please email us at pay@www.harper-morris.co.uk or call us at 01279 654696.