Auto-enrolment delay for small businesses

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that staging dates for small businesses (with fewer than 50 employees) will be delayed by at least a year. The staging date is the date the employer automatic enrolment duty apples and fixes the date the employers will be assessed for auto enrolment. Larger employers are affected first and then smaller employers.

In November 2011, the Pensions Minister  confirmed the change in policy and that firms with less than 3000 employees will not be affected.

The current staging date timeline currently only runs till 1 July 2013 (rather than September 2016, as it was previously) and there has been confirmation from the Pensions Regulator that it will update its guidance on staging and the phasing of contributions as soon as the government publishes the revised staging schedule.

Under the revised timetable it appears that small businesses would begin automatically enrolling their staff in May 2015, instead of the current timing of April 2014.

Additionally, the previous extra table that applied to small businesses sharing a PAYE scheme has been removed, this implying that further changes may still be made, despite the minister's confirmation that no further alterations to staging dates are planned.

The Pensions Regulatory should write to businesses a year before they are required to implement auto enrolment, the Regulator’s current list of staging dates is at available at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/staging-dates-by-employer.pdf. There are online calculators available where businesses can work out when they will be required to implement auto enrolment, one such calculator is at http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/employers/tools/staging-date.aspx.

The revised timetable will be published in the new year.