10th December 2015

The Pensions Regulator - Industry Liaison update December 2015

• Do you have any events planned where you would like a TPR speaker to come and talk about automatic enrolment?

As part of our education and enablement approach, we attend and speak at events on automatic enrolment.

The focus now is very much on ensuring that small and micro employers comply with their duties. Providers and advisers are reviewing their propositions to cater for the different needs of smaller employers. Some business advisers will be new to automatic enrolment and will be assisting their clients for the first time.

Our presentations offer an explanation of the automatic enrolment legislation, as well as insight into lessons learnt.  We tailor the content to meet the needs of your audience. We encourage participants to ask questions to gain as much from the session as possible.

Some of the topics we often cover are:

• An overview of the employer duties
• What advice and services can business advisers such as accountants and payroll bureaux offer
• Compliance and enforcement update and lessons learned from employers that have staged
• Cyclical re-enrolment duties

If you would like to request a member of the industry liaison team to speak at an event (speakers are provided free of charge), please complete the speaker request form using the link below. We typically need a minimum of an hour to present and answer questions, plus an audience of at least 20.  We are already booking up fast for events next year, so please put your requests in ASAP.

Speaker request form

Alternatively, if you are holding virtual events we would happily consider providing speakers for these too.

• Staging date API

We have developed a staging date application programming interface (API) which provides the facility for third party software, such as payroll software, to request the staging dates for employers so they can use or display the date in their systems. We’ll be providing further information about the API and how to register when the service is live. This service is scheduled to go live in the week commencing 14^th December.

If you would like to know more please email pensoftware@thepensionsregulator.gov.uk

• Autumn statement changes

The Government has announced plans to adjust, by about 6 months, the date on which the minimum pension contribution levels increase.

Phase 2 will now start on 6 April 2018^† and phase 3 will start on 6 April 2019^† (^†subject to parliamentary approval). This is not a delay to the roll out of automatic enrolment, but a measure to give all employers, and smaller employers in particular, more time to prepare for the increases and to reduce the administrative burden by aligning the changes with the start of each tax year.

• Action planning tool

Please note that this tool has been removed from our website, as we now have 5 steps for employers. Our website pages for business advisers will also be further updated soon.

• Our latest message to employers

“Do not stick your head in the sand if you think you’ve gone wrong - get in touch and we can help you get back on track”.

Pensions, Auto-Enrolment