PENSIONS – AUTOMATIC ENROLMENT/AUTOMATIC ENROLMENT
Synopsis: Four and a half million workers have been auto enrolled so far but there is still work to do for tens of thousands of employers.
Date posted: Friday, October 03, 2014
The Pensions Regulator has marked the second anniversary of the start of automatic enrolment by acknowledging its success to date and warning this is no time to rest.
It is two years since the first of the UK’s largest employers began meeting new workplace pension duties as part of the Government’s automatic enrolment programme.
Since then, around four and a half million workers have been automatically enrolled into work-based pension schemes and nearly 28,000 businesses have met their new legal duties.
Research by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has shown around nine million people will eventually be saving for the first time or saving more thanks to automatic enrolment.
While the anniversary is a day to mark the achievements so far, The Pensions Regulator’s executive director for automatic enrolment, Charles Counsell, has warned this is no time for complacency.
He said: “The first two years of automatic enrolment have been a great success with many thousands of employers helping to change the way we as a nation save for retirement, but this is no time to rest.
“Small employers whose duties are on the horizon must make sure they know what they will need to do and when. We will provide employers with the information they need to comply but it comes with a warning: act now, be prepared or risk a financial penalty.
“We know that as the numbers of employers reaching their deadline rises, the numbers of times we will need to use our compliance powers will also rise.”
Next summer, tens of thousands of small employers will need to be ready to meet their automatic enrolment duties and the regulator is now writing to all of them urging them to act to ensure their staff get the pension savings they are entitled to.
Mr Counsell added: “Research shows that most employers want to do the right thing by their workers and our message remains the same: find out when your duties start and prepare in good time.’
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