Are you ready for workplace pension?
Legally, every UK employer will soon have to comply with the automatic enrolment scheme. Employers must enrol certain workers into a qualifying workplace pension scheme and make contributions towards it.
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You may need to act now!
With J & M Payroll Services Ltd all you have to do is choose the pension provider and we'll do the rest!
When do I have to start auto enrolment?
Call J & M Payroll Services Ltd and we can let you know your staging date.
You can find your staging date at: thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/employers/tools/staging-date.aspx
Staging date and postponement
It is possible to postpone the date at which pension contributions are required to be paid by up to three months by using postponement. This does not change your staging date.
Analysis of your workforce
There are three categories of workers: eligible, non-eligible and entitled jobholders.
An eligible jobholder is a worker who is:
- aged between 22 years and the state pension age
- earning over the earnings trigger
- working or ordinarily working in the UK
- not already in a qualifying pension scheme
Minimum contributions
As part of the automatic enrolment process, employers will need to make contributions to the pension scheme for eligible jobholders.
Compulsory contributions from 6th April 2019 will be 5% for the employee and 3% for the employer.
Consider who will be the pension provider
Employer duties
It is your responsibility as an employer to have an appropriate pension scheme. To be a qualifying auto enrolment scheme, a scheme must meet the qualifying criteria and the auto enrolment criteria.
Communicating with your workers
There are some communications that you, as an employer, must send to your workers. These need to be within certain time periods after the staging date. For example, an eligible jobholder must be given certain information by the employer within six weeks of the staging date.
J & M Payroll Services Ltd can send communications by email to your workers at the appropriate times. The pension scheme you have chosen may be able to send the required communications, but they may make a charge for this.
There are some things you cannot do
An eligible jobholder has the right to opt out of auto enrolment if they wish. However, you cannot encourage the worker to opt out. For example, an employer cannot offer a higher salary to an employee who opts out or deny a promotion to an employee who has not opted out.
Enrolment of workers and payment of contributions
If postponement is not being used, the staging date will be the point from which an eligible jobholder will be automatically enrolled. This means that:
- workers will need to be assessed by reference to their age on the staging date and their pay in in the relevant pay reference period
- pension contributions are due from the employer and employee from the staging date.
This is why the pension scheme and the basis of calculation of contributions needs to be established before the staging date.
J & M Payroll Services Ltd will calculate and compute the amounts payable to the pension scheme as an additional payroll process.
Bringing your staging date forward
If you wish to commence your auto enrolment scheme earlier than your staging date you can do so but you must bring your staging date forward, otherwise the scheme will not qualify as an auto enrolment scheme. This can be done on the Pensions Regulator website – please ask J & M Payroll Services Ltd if you require assistance with this.
We are currently processing pensions with the following companies:
- NEST (National Employment Savings Trust) – is a pension scheme provider that has been set up by the government and must accept all employers that apply to use it for automatic enrolment.
- Smart Pension
- NOW: Pensions – relatively new to the UK but has over 40 years’ experience in running an auto enrolment scheme in Denmark
- The People’s Pension – new but administered by B&CE, managers of one of the largest stakeholder pensions in the UK
- Legal & General, Standard Life, Scottish Widows, Aviva and many others
