Auto-Enrolment – It’s Here And It’s Happening!

It is a fact that people are living for longer. There are currently 13,000 centenarians in the UK, but this figure is expected to reach 500,000 by 2066!

Too many people are under-saving or not saving at all for what could be a long retirement. Only one in three people are actually contributing to a pension. The law on workplace pensions has changed to make it easier for millions more people to build up a pension, particularly those on lower incomes.

Automatic enrolment means that, rather than having to actively choose to join a pension scheme, staff are put into one by their employer as a matter of course. If they don’t want to be in the pension scheme, they must actively choose to opt out. It’s to encourage people to stay in pension saving.

As an employer, you can use your PAYE reference to find your staging date using the tool on the link below;

Click here

A staging date is when your automatic enrolment duties come into force and is based on the total number of people in your PAYE scheme. There is the option to postpone auto-enrolment for up to 3 months from your staging date. Whether you choose to do this or not, the time will come for when you need to be ready.

Every employee who fits the criteria below will be required to be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme;

                 –  Are aged 22 years old or over
                 –  Are under the state pension age
                 –  Work or usually work in the UK
                 –  Earn more than £10,000 per year (tax year 2014/15)

If you operate your own business then your staging date will depend on the number of workers you have. Small employers (with 49 employees or less) don’t have to start auto enrolling until between June 2015 and April 2017. If your business was not set up until after April 2012 then you don’t have to start automatically enrolling your workers until between May 2017 and February 2018.

We have put a short video together here to help you understand your obligations.

                             Auto-enrolment; Watch now

For advice and help now, please contact Warren at Lexington on 01793 771093 or email [email protected]