Cyclical re-enrolment in your automatic enrolment pension scheme

Find out about the basics of pension re-enrolment in Sage 50 Payroll.

Every three years you must assess if employees need to go back onto a pension scheme.

Your re-enrolment duties vary depending on whether you have any employees who fall into a worker category that you must re-enrol.

To find out more about re-enrolment, go to thepensionsregulator.gov.uk.

 

Pension re-enrolment is a check on employees who opt out of your workplace pension. This check enrols them back into the scheme every three years.

You only need to re-enrol employees who are eligible jobholders at the point you assess them for re-enrolment.

The information below outlines how you do this.

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Choose your re-enrolment date

First, you choose a re-enrolment date within the six-month re-enrolment window.

The re-enrolment window is a six-month period, that's every three years after your original duties start date or staging date.

The window starts three months before this anniversary, and ends three months after it.

Check the diagram below for an illustration of how the dates work, including when you need to complete your declaration of compliance.

You can choose to align your re-enrolment date with other key dates in your business. For example, to avoid any seasonal peaks that result in an influx of new pension scheme members.

If you have a single pay frequency, consider selecting a re-enrolment date that aligns with the first day of a pay reference period. This helps to avoid pro-rata pension contributions.

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Assess and re-enrol eligible employees

On your re-enrolment date, you must assess employees who you've previously assessed for automatic enrolment and who have:

• Been eligible jobholders at some point since your duties began
• Opted out of your pension scheme
• Ceased active membership of your pension scheme

Re-enrolment includes employees who stayed in your pension scheme, but chose to reduce their pension contributions to below the minimum amount required.

Re-enrol employees who:

• Have left your automatic enrolment pension scheme more than 12 months before your re-enrolment date and;
• Are between 22 years old and state pension age
• Have qualifying earnings above the earnings trigger for automatic enrolment

You can choose whether or not to assess employees who left your pension scheme less than 12 months before your re-enrolment date.

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Write to re-enrolled employees

Next you must write to any employees that you re-enrol within six weeks of your re-enrolment date.

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Complete your declaration of compliance

Finally, you need to tell The Pensions Regulator (TPR) how you've met your legal duties. To do this, complete an online declaration of compliance at thepensionsregulator.gov.uk.

The deadline for your declaration is five months after the third anniversary of your duties start date or staging date. Go to thepensionsregulator.gov.uk to find out more.

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Process cyclical re-enrolment

If you use the Pensions Module to process your workplace pension scheme, you can use it to help you complete your re-enrolment duties.

If you aren't subscribed to the Pensions Module and re-enrolment is due, you need to complete re-enrolment manually.

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