Why you should be thinking about Auto-enrolment now

Chartered accountants Hilton Sharp & Clarke explain why you should be thinking about Auto-enrolment now.

As an employer with fewer than 50 employees, it is 2015 and 2016 which will see the creation of an enormous number of Auto-enrolment schemes. If you have not already been informed of your staging date then you need to find out using the Pension Regulator website now.

It is vital that you start to plan how you will implement Auto-enrolment at least 12 months before your staging date. The Pensions Regulator will be able to issue enforcement notices and penalties for non-compliance.

The Pensions Regulator website contains a very helpful online guide to explain what you need to do and when, but you should be aware that you will need systems in place to deal with communication with your employees before, during and after auto-enrolment through to actually setting up the pension scheme. This will take time and is why the recommendation is to plan as far ahead as possible and why many employers are making one person responsible for overseeing Auto-enrolment is implemented within their business or out-sourcing the process to specialists.

It is also anticipated that with such a large number of employers registering over the next two years, employers may find time delays occurring no matter how well prepared in advance because pension providers will have a large volume of applications to process from the 500,000 small – medium sized businesses setting up their schemes in 2015/16.

Useful links

Find your staging date

Auto-enrolment guide

Non-compliance

HSC provides it’s own auto-enrolment service and offers a free meeting to explain what auto enrolment is about, what you need to do, how much it will cost your company and how our service can help.  This is a no obligation meeting so if you are interested please contact ngorton@ukae.net and mention where you found her name.

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