Auto-Enrolment 1 – Software Developers urged to Share Payroll Information

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On 26 November 2008, the Pensions Bill was granted the necessary Royal Assent to form the Pensions Act 2008.  This provided the legislative framework, , i.e. the starting point for the introduction of auto-enrolment – the automatic enrolment of qualifying workers into compulsory employer pension schemes.  From October 2012, the largest employers with over 3,000 employees will be the first to comply with various Orders and Regulations that have come about as a result of the Act.

On 21 December 2011, Charles Counsell, Executive Director of Employer Compliance at the Pensions Regulator, issued an open letter to the payroll software industry.  In this, he recognised the engagement that The Pensions Regulator had had with developers so far.  He wrote that he was aware that many employers had been provided with insufficient information from their software developers on how they had developed systems to comply with the pay and calculations that will be required.  He called on the payroll software industry to engage further with their customer base and share their development and product offerings.

Comment

This open letter dovetails nicely with a DWP press release in December, ‘Undersaving Britain – pension saving at the lowest level in 10 years’.  Pensions Minister Steven Webb called the 38% of people that are saving an ‘alarming’ figure – ‘Automatic Enrolment, beginning for the largest employers later this year, will get millions of people saving’, he is quoted.

It is comforting to read research by The Pensions Regulator (‘Employers’ awareness, understanding and activity relating to workplace pensions reforms’), which indicates growing awareness of pensions reforms, specifically the duties surrounding auto-enrolment.  See the link below, which is direct to their Website, from where the report is available.

Further Information

• The Pensions Regulator – December 2011 Open Letter ‘Supporting the UK’s employers with automatic enrolment’
• DWP – Undersaving Britain
• The Pensions Regulator – New research on employers’ automatic enrolment preparations

Tags: auto enrolment, automatic enrolment, payroll software, sharing payroll data, software development

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 08:52 and is filed under Pensions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.