The Government has published a revised timetable for pensions auto-enrolment.
From 1 October 2012, and depending on the size of the PAYE scheme, employers will have to enrol eligible employees automatically into a qualifying workplace pension scheme or the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST). Employers will also have to make mandatory contributions.
Under the scheme, employers will be given a “staging date” from which they must auto-enrol eligible employees if they are using a defined-contribution scheme or NEST as their qualifying workplace pension scheme.
On 25 January 2012, the Government published a revised auto-enrolment staging timetable. Click here to see the new timetable. The publication of the new timetable follows the Government’s announcement in November 2011 that small businesses with fewer than 50 employees would begin auto-enrolment in May 2015, instead of April 2014. (Click here for further details.) Under the revised timetable, there will be no change to the staging dates of employers with 250 or more employees. All existing businesses will have enrolled their staff by April 2017, followed by all new employers by February 2018.
The Pensions Regulator has published some useful information on auto-enrolment on its website. Click here.
If you have any concerns about how auto-enrolment will affect your business, please contact me at michael.delaney@mablaw.com.