Delaying auto-enrolment could be costly

Some 22,000 charities are due to stage and meet their automatic enrolment obligations from 2015 and onwards. Ian Bird, Business Development Director at ACEVO’s Corporate Partner Foster Denovo Ltd, warns that delays could be costly.

Hundreds of thousands of small employers across the UK have either started to, or will shortly be, receiving letters from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) telling them of their automatic enrolment duties as an employer. As TPR states: ‘Every employer, with at least one member of staff, must automatically enrol those who are eligible into a workplace pension scheme and contribute towards it.’

Whilst awareness of automatic enrolment has increased in the sector, I would argue that there are still high numbers of organisations that are unsure of their own set of obligations. As a result, I believe that many of TPR’s letters could – sadly – go left unread.

Foster Denovo has created an online virtual consultant to automatic enrolment, for small businesses and charities. Matthew Mitten, Enrolsme Director, believes that charities need to consider what the potential cost implications of automatic enrolment will be. He adds: “Whilst most fully support the concept of automatic enrolment, there is no avoiding the fact that employers will incur costs as they prepare to comply with the legislation. Delaying the automatic enrolment process will – inevitably – cost charities and the sector even more.

“There has also been much debate over whether the pensions industry will face a capacity crunch – where thousands of organisations are looking to stage at the same time. Only time will tell if this will be the case – I certainly hope not.”

Click here to read the full article on ACEVO’s blog.