Workplace Pensions

All UK employers must have a workplace pension scheme in place, for their employees to be enrolled in should they meet the auto-enrolment criteria, or wish to join the scheme voluntarily.

What is auto enrolment?

Auto-enrolment is the process of assessing all employees and automatically enrolling any that meet the criteria into a workplace pension scheme to begin making contributions into their pension pot.

On-going access to our team’s expert knowledge, with a dedicated Auto-enrolment team as your direct point of contact.

Employer responsibilities

In addition to assessing the eligibility of their staff the employer will also need to submit a ‘Declaration of Compliance’ to The Pensions Regulator within 5 months of becoming an employer.

Every three years the employer must also:‘re-declare’ their compliance with The Pensions Regulator
re-assess and potentially re-enrol employees who previously chose to leave the pension scheme.

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Quartz provides a pension service to help support your business and ensure employers are legally compliant.

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What are the current minimum pension contributions?

Pension contributions are generally calculated based on an employee’s qualifying earnings, using the minimum percentages as detailed below.

	Employer	Employee	Government	Total
(Present) 6th April 2019 onwards	3%	4%	1%*	8%

*Please note: only some pension schemes claim tax relief from the government. If you choose to enrol your employee in a pension scheme which does not claim tax relief from the government, the full 8% contributions must be split between the employer and employee, with the employer paying a minimum of 3%

Would my employee meet the criteria for automatic enrolment?

An employee qualifies for automatic enrolment into a pension scheme if they are:

Between 22 – state pension age
Earning £10,000 or more per annum

What if my employee does not wish to join a pension scheme?

It is a legal requirement to enrol all eligible employees into a workplace pension scheme.

Once the employee has been enrolled in a pension scheme they can choose ‘opt out’ or ‘cease membership’ of the scheme to stop any further contributions.

Opt-Out – An employee has one month to opt-out of their pension scheme, after initially being enrolled. To do this they would need to contact their pension provider directly and “opt-out”. A refund of any contributions paid during this period is then processed.
Cease membership – If the one-month “Opt-out” window has passed then an employee can request instead to “cease membership”. They would need to contact the scheme provider directly. Any contributions paid into their pension scheme would remain in their pension pot.

Would my employee meet the criteria for automatic enrolment?

What if my employee does not wish to join a pension scheme?

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