New timetable for auto-enrolment of pensions

Unions are disappointed with the government’s decision to move back the dates for when small and medium-sized organisations have to comply with auto-enrolment for pensions.

Medium-sized employers — with between 50 and 249 employees — see their automatic enrolment start date pushed back by a year to 1 April 2015, the Department for Work and Pensions has announced.

For small employers the dates are moved back to between 1 October 2015 and enrolment now only has to be completed by 1 April 2017.

Large employers — those with 250 or more employees — will have to start enrolment from 1 October this year as originally planned and have up to 1 February 2014 to comply.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the delay was “deeply disappointing”.

“Everyone agrees that we face a pensions crisis, yet successive governments have delayed the introduction of auto-enrolment and the new system will not now be fully in place until three years after the next general election," he said.

“What’s worse is that even workers auto-enrolled this year will now have to wait until the end of the staging process before they get their full contribution. This is because contributions are being phased in, with the final stage delayed until 2018 — 13 long years after the Pensions Commission recommended auto-enrolment.

“It all adds up to a classic case of ‘make me good, but not yet'.”

www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/press-releases/2012/jan-2012/dwp010-12.shtml

www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-20525-f0.cfm