The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has published a report detailing the issues that Dunelm Soft Furnishings Ltd. encountered when found not to be complying with their employer duties.
Employers who are yet to reach their staging date for automatic enrolment may find the TPR’s report an interesting read as it highlights the areas that led Dunelm to be non- compliant.
Dunelm openly explained to the regulator the difficulties they had experienced and the cause of a number of the issues. The contributory factors were:
the bespoke payroll solution had design flaws resulting in significant delay in achieving compliance and completing registration. The bespoke payroll solution did not fulfil the Dunelm specification, was ineffective for automatic enrolment and the reporting capability was not fully functional key members of staff involved in the automatic enrolment project, including the points of contact, had ceased employment with Dunelm at critical points in the automatic enrolment timeline, namely just prior to the staging date and just after registration data quality issues were experienced when uploading employee information to the pension provider which prevented active.
If you are experiencing difficulty in complying with your automatic enrolment duties, contact The Pensions Regular as soon as possible.
The regulator point out in this report that their overall approach is to educate and enable employers to comply with the legislation. In cases where an employer has not understood their duties or has been unable to comply, the regulator will work with them to try and achieve compliance. Therefore an employer who is experiencing challenges in meeting their automatic enrolment duties should contact the regulator to discuss their situation. The regulator is focused on maximising employer compliance and ensuring that workers get the pensions contributions they are entitled to.
Read the full TPR report on Dunelm
Labour proposes lowering automatic enrolment threshold to widen pension provision
2 June 2014
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves announced in a speech that one of labour’s policies would be to lower the automatic enrolment earnings threshold.
In a speech to the Resolution Foundation, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves said that essential elements in labour’s ambition are ensuring that those who can work are in work, that work always pays and that our social security system rewards responsibility and contribution. She also said that nowhere are these values more important than in the area of retirement and pension provision. The Labour Party has been setting out practical policies that can turn this vision into reality in the twenty-first century and Reeves’ speech was all about the important part that pension reform has to play in that. The two challenges she set out were ensuring that everyone is able to save, and making sure that all savers can get value for money from those savings. On the first point regarding the ability to save, the focus was on making it easier for those in low paid and irregular work to save and how labour wants to bring those 1.5 million workers who are below the automatic enrolment earnings threshold, back into workplace saving. Promising to consult with employers, trade unions and pensions experts about the best way of doing this, but saying that she believes we should be broadening, not narrowing, the
CIPP Policy News Journal
08/04/2015, Page 327 of 521
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