Auto-Enrolment Pension
- Mark Holland (Unlicensed)
The work-based Pensions reforms require auto-enrolment into pension schemes. Where there is no existing staff pension, employers will either need to set up a suitable 'qualifying scheme' or find one in the marketplace, including NEST, the National Employment Savings Trust, a trust-based occupational scheme set up by the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA).
The responsibility for enrolling employees into the chosen scheme(s) and collecting and paying over contributions will fall on employers. Employers already providing pension schemes will need to ensure they are 'qualifying schemes', which may require changes to their schemes and contributions arrangements.
A general process of setting up auto-enrolment would include the following steps:-
Company Details - Adding in a staging date.
Company General - Option to postpone pension enrolment.
Pay Elements - Defining which pay elements are within scope of the scheme.
Pension Scheme - Creating the scheme.
Employee Pension Details - Assigning as employee to a scheme (set up at the company level).
In addition, the below sections might be useful:-
Reporting - Using the InPay standard reports to evaluate employee's enrolment status.
Imports - Using importers to assign employees to existing schemes or update opt out, postponement end, termination or notice dates in bulk.
InTime - For companies linked to InTime, what information is visible in InTime relating to the pension enrolment and contributions.