Altmann: Ramping up our auto-enrolment support for smaller employers

With 50,000 large and medium-sized employers having already successfully enrolled 5.3m people, our attention has now turned to the smaller companies that make up the bulk of the UK’s employers.

This seismic shift has wide-ranging implications, particularly for the way in which we engage with these 1.8m smaller employers.

Most of them do not have the same resources to draw upon to meet their responsibilities as the blue chip companies and multinational corporations that have gone before them.

As the focus has shifted to smaller employers, one of the Pensions Regulator’s first moves has been to unveil a step-by-step guide aimed specifically at those that employ between 1 and 49 members of staff.

We recently relaunched the “we’re all in” advertising campaign in a bid to raise awareness among employees. In the coming weeks we will be introducing a brand new campaign, so watch out for it

This guide explains when employers should complete a task, how long it should take, and what’s coming next.

First and foremost, employers need to find out when auto-enrolment will start for them, which they can do online by entering their PAYE number here. 

Finding a suitable pension provider can be daunting, so the regulator has provided guidance on what employers should look for in a scheme.

If you employ staff who earn less than £10,600 a year, make sure that you use a scheme that allows your lower-paid employees to benefit from the tax relief they are entitled to. This means using a 'relief at source' scheme.

Because we are aware that most employers will turn to an adviser to help them, the regulator will continue to update the information it provides to advisers to ensure they are able to help their clients.

Many smaller employers will not have HR or payroll functions that they can call on to help them calculate how much they need to pay in contributions.

Mindful of this, the regulator is developing an online tool specifically to help the 200,000 employers who use HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tool.

The regulator has also tried to produce more user-friendly information to cater for different types of employers, including those who employ a carer or personal assistant and those who have lots of temporary or seasonal staff. 

And we recently relaunched the “we’re all in” advertising campaign in a bid to raise awareness among employees. In the coming weeks we will be introducing a brand new campaign, so watch out for that.

The message appears to be getting through. An impressive 98 per cent of small employers and 94 per cent of micro employers, who were surveyed two to four months before reaching their staging date, said they understood their responsibilities.

With record numbers of people now saving into a workplace pension, many of whom are doing so for the first time, auto-enrolment is succeeding in changing the UK’s attitude to long-term saving.

Ros Altmann is the pensions minister

To get our take on Altmann's recent expulsion from the Labour Party, click here