Employers warned to stay right side of the law on pensions

Employers warned to stay right side of the law on pensions

Published: August 16th, 2019

Small and micro employers across the Marches have been urged to make sure they are staying on the right side of the law as staff start to reach their workplace pension re-enrolment deadlines.

Image_Employers be awareRe-enrolment means staff who opted out of their workplace pension are put back in by their employer.

So far, around 117,000 large and medium employers have completed re-enrolment. It’s a straightforward task and employers will receive a letter from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) reminding them about their re-enrolment responsibilities.

Automatic enrolment is business as usual, and simply part and parcel of running a business – most employers spend just a couple of hours a month completing their ongoing duties.

Compliance with the law remains high, with the majority of employers successfully meeting their legal responsibilities. However, TPR is warning employers to leave enough time to complete re-enrolment, as failing to complete tasks correctly and on time will lead to non-compliance and risk a fine.

Re-enrolment must be carried out every three years. Employers can choose a re-enrolment date which falls three months either side of the third anniversary of the date their workplace pensions duties started – but to make it easier for them, TPR tells employers to simply use the third anniversary of their staging date.

Once the re-enrolment date has been set, employers must work towards and meet that deadline.

Employers must assess staff who opted out when they were enrolled, to check if they’re still eligible. If they are, they must be put back into a pension scheme. Employers must inform these staff in writing about how they’re affected by automatic enrolment.

Employers must then complete and submit an online re-declaration of compliance form to confirm to TPR what they’ve done to meet their re-enrolment responsibilities. Failure to carry out this task and complete re-enrolment means employers fall foul of the law and risk a fine.

Low opt-out rates mean the majority of employers won’t have staff to re-enrol, however they must still complete their re-declaration to confirm they’ve checked whether they need to put any of their staff back into a pension scheme.

TPR has a useful website tool to help you find out what you need to do and by when.

For more information on re-enrolment and re-declaration visit www.tpr.gov.uk/re-enrol

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