The final changes either give employers more options or extend deadlines for existing processes without changing the processes themselves. The secondary legislation laid before Parliament on 11th October brings the majority of changes into force on 1st November 2013. The only exceptions are the change to the joining window and registration deadlines that will come into force on 1st April 2014. CIPP comment As previously published , the Pensions Minister Steve Webb announced at the CIPP’s Annual Payroll and Pensions Conference that these changes would be coming into force. The CIPP is pleased the DWP has listened to the concerns of employers and payroll software providers to help employers comply with their automatic enrolment duties. It will be important for employers to confirm with their software providers when they intend to make any changes to their automatic enrolment software, as whilst most changes are effective from 1 November many software providers will not be able to distribute amendments in two weeks.
For further details, the government has published their response to the consultation on draft regulations and other proposed technical changes to automatic enrolment.
Employers may not pass on consultancy charges to members of automatic enrolment schemes
16 October 2013
Regulations have come into force preventing employers from passing on consultancy charges to members of automatic enrolment defined contribution (DC) schemes.
Lexology reports that the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Automatic Enrolment) (Amendment) Regulations 2013, add a new requirement that the rules of an automatic enrolment scheme must not permit employers to agree to pay third parties using money: taken from contributions made to the scheme;
taken from investment proceeds of or capital gains of the scheme; or raised by reducing the value of the jobholder's rights under the scheme.
A "third party" for this purpose means any person other than the jobholder, trustee or manager of the scheme (in the case of occupational pension schemes) or provider of the scheme (in the case of personal pension schemes). The condition does not apply if the employer entered into a legally enforceable agreement to pay a third party (in the above manner) before 10 May 2013, the date the government announced its plans to prohibit employer payments to third parties in this way. The DWP has, however, indicated that it will consult this autumn over whether to extend the prohibition to agreements entered into before this date. The new requirements only apply to employers. Trustees or managers of DC occupational pension schemes and providers of personal pension schemes may pay administration charges (including charges levied to pay commission owed under agreements with third parties).
Automatic enrolment six month count down for medium sized employers has begun
21 October 2013
The clock is ticking for thousands of medium sized employers across the UK who have six months to go before their duty to automatically enrol workers into a work-based pension begins.
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 394 of 519
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