The Regulator for Charities in England and Wales
October 2009
The Department of Work and Pensions has recently put out to consultation the remaining regulations to be made under the Pensions Act 2008. The regulations propose a number of new duties for all employers, including charities. Employers will be required to automatically enrol all eligible jobholders into a workplace pension arrangement, and to contribute to that arrangement.
From October 2012 a jobholder aged between 22 and the pensionable age must be automatically enrolled in a qualifying scheme by the employer. Jobholders who are aged between 16 and 21, or between pensionable age and 75 may require their employers to opt them into the scheme.
The duties will be launched from October 2012, but will be staged over a 3-year period. Large firms (those with 250 or more employees in their PAYE scheme) will come on stream first. Micro firms (those with between 1 and 4 employees) will not have to comply with these new duties until the latter part of the 3-year period.
The minimum employer contributions will come in incrementally. For defined contribution schemes employers must contribute at least 1% of the employee’s qualifying earnings (all pay components between £5,035 and £33,540 per year) from October 2012, 2% from October 2015, and 3% from October 2016. The transitional arrangement for defined benefit and hybrid schemes is that employers will be allowed to delay automatic enrolment until the 3-year staging period has ended.
Full details of the consultation, which ends on 4 November, are on the DWP website at Workplace Pension Reforms: Completing the Picture (PDF 1.09mb).