New pension legislation has been introduced which makes it mandatory for all employers to offer a pension to employees.

Each employer is allocated a date, referred to as the staging date, by which this mandatory pension must be in place.

From the staging date employers must assess whether each employee is eligible to be 'auto-enrolled' at every pay run.

So, if wages are run weekly then employers have to make a pension assessment for all employees every week.

Employers then need to start enrolling employees into the scheme and begin making contributions.

The contribution levels 'evolve' over time from the staging date of two per cent of salary in total (at least one per cent from employer) until September 30, 2017, then five per cent in total (two per cent from employer) until September 30, 2018, then eight per cent in total (three per cent from employer) from October 1, 2018.

The employer is also under very strong obligations to maintain records to prove that they have made assessments and followed employee instructions as to whether they opt out of the pension regime.

There are significant fines in place at a rate of £10,000 per day for breaching these rules so they should be taken extremely seriously.

We are finding that many businesses are outsourcing this headache – contact Denise to find out how.