It’s hard to believe it has nearly been three years since auto-enrolment started.
From October 2015 the early stagers will now have to re-enrol their staff.
Re-enrolment is a sizeable task, and requires proper planning. You must ensure that eligible staff who are not already in your auto-enrolment pension scheme are put back into it.
Below we have outlined some guidance on re-enrolment:
When will I need to re-enrol?
You’ll have three months either side of the third anniversary of your staging date in which to choose your re-enrolment date. This gives you a six-month window in which you can choose a re-enrolment date, but you must have the same re-enrolment date for all staff you have to re-enrol.
What will I need to do?
You’ll need to carry out an assessment of your staff to determine if you need to re-enrol any of them on your re-enrolment date. This applies to eligible staff that have, more than 12 months before your chosen re-enrolment date:
opted out of your automatic enrolment pension scheme
ceased active membership of your pension scheme after the end of the opt-out period
stayed in your pension scheme but have chosen to reduce the level of pension contributions to below the minimum level and who meet the age and earnings criteria to be re-enrolled.
If any of the above events happen within 12 months of your chosen re-enrolment date, you may decide to automatically enrol the eligible staff, but you are not required to do so.
What if I don’t have any staff to re-enrol?
If you find that you don’t have any eligible staff to re-enrol, you’ll still need to re-declare your compliance. Your deadline to re-declare your compliance will depend on whether you have any eligible staff to re-enrol on the re-enrolment date.
If you have eligible staff to automatically re-enrol, you must complete the re-declaration of compliance within two months of your selected re-enrolment date. If you don’t have any eligible staff to re-enrol, your re-declaration deadline date will be the day before the third anniversary of your original declaration of compliance.
How do I re-enrol staff?
If you have staff to re-enrol, ensure that they are put in an automatic enrolment pension scheme within six weeks of the re-enrolment date. You must then write to them within the same six-week window. You only need to write to the staff affected by re-enrolment.
If you have eligible staff to re-enrol, you’ll need to follow the same steps as you did when you first automatically enrolled them. The pension scheme you use for re-enrolment must meet the automatic enrolment criteria. However, it is likely that you’ll already have a suitable scheme in place if you automatically enrolled any staff at your staging date.
How do employees opt-out?
Once you have automatically re-enrolled eligible staff, they remain in your scheme unless they choose to opt out or cease membership. There is a one-month window in which staff can opt out of the scheme. If any of your staff choose to do so, you’ll need to process their opt-out notices and keep records accordingly.
Johnson Fleming can help your business with re-enrolment
Ultimately, our advice is to not leave things to the last minute and risk non-compliance. For more information please download our guide on changing your scheme. Alternatively, contact a member of our Business Development team 01527 571223 or online@johnsonfleming.com.
