Posted: Wednesday 4 January 2012
Pension Changes: Delay To Auto-Enrolment Implementation For Small Businesses
A Happy New Year to everyone!
One issue which is on the radar is the commencement of auto-enrolment from 1 October of this year. I know that a lot of businesses are concerned about this and I have had a lot of queries regarding the date that employers need to implement this.
Under the new requirements, employers will have to automatically enrol their eligible jobholders into a qualifying pension scheme.
Although auto-enrolment begins on 1 October, duties upon individual employers come into force in stages, starting with very large organisations first.
Originally, auto-enrolment was due to take place over a total period of four years, however the Government announced towards the end of last year that there will be a delay in implementing the auto-enrolment requirements for small businesses, that is, those businesses having less than 50 employees.
A press release from the Department for Work and Pensions confirmed that such businesses will not now have to begin auto-enrolling their eligible jobholders until May 2015, as opposed to the original implementation date of April 2014.
According to the press release, the auto-enrolment date was delayed in order to provide small businesses with “additional breathing space” given the tough economic climate within which they are currently operating.
According to the DWP’s website, no employer with an existing staging date on or before 1 July 2013 will be affected by the changes and the auto-enrolment requirements will be implemented as planned. Based on the existing timetable, this suggests that staging dates for any employers with fewer than 3,000 jobholders may be delayed.
The website also states that a detailed staging profile for all employers is to be published in January. I will provide further details of this once it is available.
