IT COULD BE YOU!

Small UK businesses are about to receive a letter from the Pensions Regulator…It Could Be You!

We know that as a small/medium sized business owner that you wear a lot of hats and your time is very precious. That can often mean you spend more and more time concentrating on core activities, and less on things like compliance. The danger, however, is if you don’t keep up to date with current legislation your business could be vulnerable.

Over 1.3 million small and micro employers are due to stage over the next two years … are you one of them? In the next few months these SME’s will receive letters telling them about their new duties to automatically enrol staff into a workplace pension.

As an employer there are a number of duties that you must comply with as part of the automatic enrolment scheme. Here is an outline of some of the duties:

Compliance and Enforcement

You must comply with the regulations and enforce the scheme in the correct way ensuring each and every qualifying employee has the option of a pension scheme suitable for them. Failing to comply with the rules and regulations of auto enrolment can result in penalty notices, fines and court action.

Keeping Records

Both the employer and pension scheme must keep the following records as proof of compliance. These include: their name, national insurance number, date of birth, gross qualifying earnings in each relevant pay period, contributions payable in each relevant pay period, the date contributions were paid to the scheme, opt in/opt out notices, date with effect from which the worker became an active member.

Creating an action plan

You can complete an action plan which details the specific duties at each stage of auto enrolment.

Safeguards and employer duties

Some of the safeguards come into effect from 1^st July 2012 so all employers must be compliant now and not just from their staging date. The safeguards are intended to protect individuals both before a person begins working for an employer and once the person is a member of the pension scheme.