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Small charities and auto-enrolment: do you have everything in place?

The Pensions Regulator provides CFG monthly auto-enrolment updates. These blogs provide the latest guidance and messages from the regulator adapted by CFG for the charity sector. This month we are looking at: making sure you comply with your duties on time; making sure payroll software is compatible; your duties to temporary staff. As all charities should know by now, if you employ staff, then you will have automatic enrolment duties. You have a legal obligation to provide a workplace pension. You need to know when your legal duties begin, and what you need to do. If you miss your deadline and don’t comply with your duties on time, then TPR will chase you and potentially issue a fine, so it's important that you find out what your duties are and start planning now. It takes only 5 minutes to find out what you need to do, and by when. The TPR has a Duties Checker which you should check straight away and get the ball rolling. You can also find more information from CFG's auto-enrolment guide for small charities.

Make sure you are clear about who’s doing what

Completing a declaration of compliance is one of a number of tasks to do as part of your automatic enrolment duties. Failure to complete and submit the declaration of compliance to The Pensions Regulator could result in a fine. One of the reasons given by employers for missing their declaration of compliance deadline is that they thought that somebody else was completing this on their behalf. It is the employer’s legal responsibility to comply with automatic enrolment. You should know when your declaration of compliance deadline is and ensure that it is completed on time. So, if you are using payroll bureau, make sure you clearly agree whether they or you will be declaring compliance. You can find out more about this in CFG's small charities' auto-enrolment guide For more information and to complete the declaration, click here.

Setting up a workplace pension scheme – is your payroll software compatible?

In order to make pension contributions into a workplace pension scheme on behalf of your staff, you will need to regularly exchange information between your payroll software and your chosen pension scheme provider. It’s important to check if your payroll or process will work with your chosen pension scheme to allow easy transfer of data between the two. For more information, go to The Pension Regulator website

Do you employ  temporary staff? Automatic enrolment duties will apply…

If you employ seasonal staff, or you have staff whose pay and hours fluctuate, then you still have automatic duties. You will need to take into account

  • Their varying earnings and hours
  • That they may join and leave your employment in the middle of pay periods

For more information on dealing with seasonal workers, including checking your software and using postponement, go to The Pensions Regulator website.

This post was last reviewed on 27 February 2019 at 16:23
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