Auto-enrolment saw it’s fourth anniversary in October, yet more than 900,000 employers have yet to stage and fulfill their employer duties. This means the challenge posed by the initial roll-out is not over. All employers with one or more staff have a legal requirement to complete a declaration of compliance. Even if that one member of staff does not want to be in a pension scheme, they will still need to be automatically enrolled before they can ask to opt out, so you must have a workplace pension in place.
From your given staging date, you have 5 months in which to complete your auto-enrolment declaration of compliance. It is the employer’s legal duty to complete the declaration correctly and on time. If it is not completed on time, then action is likely to be taken by The Pensions Regulator (TPR), which could lead to a fine.
You will need to successfully sign up for a Government Gateway account in order to complete your online declaration, but you can start gathering the information before that by using the declaration checklist. If you have difficulties implementing auto-enrolment or gathering the information to complete your deadline, please contact TPR immediately.
Please visit The Pensions Regulator for employers to check your duties.
