I have spent the last few days with a cold towel wrapped around my head working my way through the final version of The Pensions Bill, with particular emphasis on the Automatic Enrolment section.
Despite much more than a passing acquaintance with the subject matter, the original guidance from The Pensions Regulator (TPR), and the Explanatory Notes to the Bill supplied by The Department of Work and Pensions (useful, but in the tiniest font-size it’s possible to read), it’s hard work.
Getting this information into a format that the average employer can readily absorb, and work towards, is going to be a struggle. I am however committed to producing a series of technical bulletins on this by the end of this year, and will post any blog-worthy issues as well as my research moves forward.
Which neatly takes me to the first of those news items, and it’s a possible ‘good news’ piece to get us off and running.
One of the principal duties for employers under auto-enrolment is to assess the workforce, to see which employees (or ‘workers’ as we all need to think about them for the purposes of this legislation) fall into which categories of employer duties. The original TPR guidance for employers in this area alone ran to some 26 pages, and contained two different processes for employer to use in assessing the employee earnings.
Well, it appears that the second of these processes looks likely to be removed at the end of a consultation process. If so, this will take away pages 13 - 18 inclusive from the radar, and any slimming of the guidance notes has got to be helpful to UK plc (and the pensions industry as well).
Having said this, the legislation still contains some interesting challenges for employers, but that’s one for the technical bulletin I think!
Will keep you posted.
Best regards
Steve
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