It seems that every time I write a post on the conundrums posed by auto-enrolment legislation, it just serves to highlight yet more unusual questions on the subject. I am in serious danger of becoming an auto-enrolment nerd at this rate.

The latest question was posed, on behalf of some of her clients, by one of my colleagues, Jo Thresher. Broadly the question centres on how the auto-enrolment rules are/ will be applied to employees who have more than one job.

Where to start?

The first thing to consider is do both of the emloyments meet the criteria for auto-enrolment of the individual employee into a qualifying pension scheme (be that NEST or a certified company supported scheme)? Just to remind you, the broad test here is that the employee falls within the relevant age range (22 to State Pension Age), and has earnings in each role which are more than the minimum threshold. This is complicated more if one of the employments has variable earnings (see my post on this subject https://www.jelfgroup.com/blog/2010/12/auto-enrolment-variable-income-earners/) but let’s keep it simple for now, and just assume set levels of salary from each employment.

If either employment falls below the income threshold (or outside of the criteria in any way), then auto-enrolment for that employment is not necessary. There is however yet another issue here around ‘opt-ins’ (see my post https://www.jelfgroup.com/blog/2010/12/auto-enrolment-opt-ins/), but let’s not get distracted from the main thrust of this post at the moment.

Assuming however that both employments are meeting all the criteria, do both employers need to undertake auto-enrolment? Simple answer, as far as I can see, is yes they do. So for any one month the employee could be personally paying contributions via two payrolls, and receiving employer contributions from two different employers as well.

Now this may appear a little cumbersome, but that’s how it is. The employee could, of course, opt-out of either (or both) schemes if he/she wishes but, and this is the important bit, the employer must NOT encourage the employee to do so. Any encouragmeent to opt out could be seen as ‘soft-coercian’ by the DWP, and may be subject to heavy fines.

So this bit is, relatively, straight-forward and concludes Part 1 of this post. However part 2 follows and is a little more sector specific…

Best regards

Steve