‘Get to know your pension’ ‘Get to know your responsibilties’ 18 October 2017
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) and The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have launched a new campaign which aims to reinforce the importance of employees getting to know their workplace pension scheme and employers getting to know their responsibilities. The campaign will continue to build on automatic enrolment awareness among new employers and those still due to stage. For employees, the campaign aims to change the relationship people have with their pension, moving it from something complex and best ignored to something on their side that they should get to know. So far over 8.7 million employees have been enrolled into a workplace pension scheme by more than 800,000 employers. New employers now have a legal duty to put staff straight into a workplace pension as soon as they employ them, and by February 2018 the last group of small and micro employers will have met their staging date. In April 2018 we see the first increase in contribution rates.
The fully-integrated, dual branded campaign aims to inspire a life-long savings culture for retirement that’s as natural as checking your bank statements.
The new ‘ Get to know your pension ’ TPR/DWP web pages have sections for employees, employers and new employers.
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What if your new employer client misses their auto enrolment duties start date? 7 November 2017 If you have clients who are new employers and they miss their duties start date, they will need to work out what their duties are and comply with them immediately. They may also need to backdate contributions for members of staff that need to be put in a workplace pension If your client has missed their duties start date by up to 6 weeks, they could apply postponement to delay the assessment of their workforce (for a period of up to three months from their duties start date). For example, if an employer’s duties start date was Monday 23 October and they were late complying - providing they were able to give all their staff postponement notices - to arrive on or before 23:59 on Monday 4 December (6 weeks late) -they would not need to backdate any contributions. If the postponement was for the maximum of 3 months, from 23 October to 23 January, then they would need to assess their staff as of 23 January and enrol eligible staff from that date. However, if your client is more than six weeks and one day late, postponement can no longer be used for assessments on the duties start date. So, they will have to enrol all staff who were eligible on the duties start date - and pay the employer’s contributions (backdated to the day their staff first met the age and earnings criteria to be put in a scheme) and give each member of staff the choice to pay (or not pay) the backdated employee contributions.
You can find more guidance on this subject on The Pension Regulator's website .
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Automatic enrolment - first wilful non-compliance conviction 15 November 2017
A bus company and its managing director have been convicted by a court after they deliberately avoided giving their staff workplace pensions.
We reported in September that Stotts Tours (Oldham) should have put 36 members of staff into a workplace pension and begun paying pension contributions from June 2015. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) decided that the company’s failure to comply with the law was deliberate and merited the criminal prosecution of both Stotts Tours (Oldham) and Alan Stott.
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Policy News Journal
cipp.org.uk
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