Some will recall that a number of technical changes were recently introduced for Pensions Auto Enrolment. The full list of the changes, many of which came into force in November 2013, can be found in my earlier post http://goo.gl/BsTUjc

Most of these changes were minor alterations of a very technical persuasion to allow employers to more easily comply with the legislation. Yet one grouping of changes, the extension of the joining window (and the other duties that sit around this window) from 4 weeks to 6 weeks, may well be of importance to many employers who are staging soon. This rule change is due to take effect on the 1st April 2014.

But, and as mentioned in my earlier post, a phrase in the Government’s response document raised a question mark against this change:

“We would regard six weeks as the exception not the norm”

This sentence left me scratching my head as to exactly which employers can, and cannot, use this extension.

Yesterday I was with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) for a couple of meetings, and I took the opportunity to raise this issue with them.

It appears that the above phrase is guidance rather than an edict. The DWP would expect most employers to complete the process in the original 4 weeks time-frame, but accept that some payroll systems/processes make this impossible, so have allowed a degree of flexibility to allow for this. And at this stage there does not seem to be any requirement for the employer to record why they are using the 6 weeks time frame rather than 4 weeks.

Yet I still believe that employers should be careful here. If you are using the longer time frame I would strongly suggest that a sound reason for doing so is recorded on file. And if there is no rationale, then aim for the original 4 weeks as per the current legislation. Although this approach may well be overly cautious, it will at least ensure that the employer can provide tangible evidence to support their decisions if they are ever required to do so by the Pensions Regulator.

Finally, it’s also worth pointing out that the extension is clearly not there to support employers who just failed to get to grips with Auto-Enrolment legislation in time to comply with their staging date. Whilst some employer’s may use this extension for that reason, that is not something that I would encourage or endorse.

Hope this helps a little.

Best regards

Steve