What are your legal duties?

It’s the law that you need to set up and run a workplace pension for your workers and, if they’re eligible for auto enrolment, pay regular contributions into it. We explain what you need to do to ensure your workplace pension meets your legal obligations.

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When do you have to set up your workplace pension?

As soon as you have eligible workers – even if it’s only one person – you’ll need to set up a workplace pension. This is known as your ‘duties start date’. It’s best to start the ball rolling as soon as possible to meet The Pensions Regulator’s requirements.

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Tell your workers about their workplace pension

Within six weeks of your duties start date, you must tell workers they’re being assessed for auto enrolment and explain all their options.

You must explain to each worker:

  • how they will be affected by auto enrolment, and
  • the deadlines they have to make their choices.

Remember, we can send the statutory communications for you, including postponement notices.

Learn more

Making your declaration of compliance

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When you’ve set up your workplace pension you need to tell The Pensions Regulator, confirming your workplace pension is compliant and that all the information you’ve sent them is accurate.

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Postponement

You can delay auto enrolment by up to three months, known as ‘postponement’. This could be useful if, for example, you have workers on short-term or temporary contracts who won’t still be working for you after three months.

If you decide to postpone the assessment of your workers, you'll need to inform them. Remember, we can do this for you.
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Keeping contributions and assessments up to date

Once your workplace pension is up and running you must make sure you assess your workers in each pay period and upload your pension data files in good time. You must also arrange for contributions to be collected promptly by Direct Debit in each pay period.
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Re-enrolment

Every three years from when you set up your workplace pension, you must check whether workers who previously opted out still qualify for auto enrolment. If they do, you must re-enrol them.

You’ll need to send enrolment notices to any workers you re-enrol. Again, we can do this for you.

Your participation agreement

This is the contract we have with all the employers who are part of our master trust. It defines the terms of participation in our Scheme. It sets out the charges you pay as an employer, your payment schedule, the services we offer and the charges your Scheme members pay.

It also outlines your responsibilities to provide payroll data, contributions and contact details for you and the members of your workplace pension.

If you want to change your agreement or have any questions about it, please contact us.

See your participation agreement

Frequently asked questions

See all support for employers

1. You must set up a workplace pension as soon as you employ someone – even if it’s only one person.

    2. You must assess your workers for auto enrolment by identifying eligible, non-eligible, and entitled workers based on age and earnings.  

        3. You must tell them they’ve been assessed and whether or not they qualify to be auto enrolled. You can ask us to do this for you. If they qualify, you’ll need to send them an enrolment letter explaining what being in the pension means, and that they can opt out.  

        4. If they don’t qualify, you’ll need to send them a letter explaining they can ask to be put into a pension and how that works.

        5. If they qualify or choose to join, you must enrol them into your workplace pension. You must take their payments from their salary and pay them into the pension. You must also pay minimum contributions. 

        6. You must make sure your payments are on time.

        7. If any workers ask to stop paying in to their pension by their opt-out deadline, you must refund any payments they’ve made.  

        8. Every pay period you must assess new workers and re-assess workers who haven’t previously qualified to be in the pension, and enrol them if they qualify now.  

        9. You must declare to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) that you’ve met your auto enrolment duties within five months of your duties start date.

        10. Every three years you must re-enrol workers who have opted out. Once you’ve done this you’ll need to re-declare to TPR that you’re meeting your auto enrolment duties.  

        11. You must provide accurate information to your workplace pension scheme and keep accurate records of all your auto enrolment activities.

          Your duties start date is the date you first employ someone – even if it’s only one person. This is the date from which your legal duties under auto enrolment apply.

          Once you’ve set up your workplace pension, you must declare to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) that:   

          • your workplace pension complies with auto enrolment legislation   
          • you, as a workplace, have met your legal duties, and   
          • all the information you’ve given is accurate.  

          You must declare your compliance within five months of your duties start date. If you don’t, TPR can fine you. TPR recommends you declare your compliance as soon as possible.   

          Every three years you must also re-declare your compliance. You must do this within five months of the three-year anniversary of your duties start date.  

          There’s more information about declaring your compliance on TPR’s website.  

          If you’re ready to declare your compliance you can go straight to TPR’s declaration of compliance page. You can download the declaration of compliance checklist to see what information you need to provide. It includes the following.   

          • Your unique Employer Pension Scheme Registry (EPSR) number – this is your four-digit workplace code.  
          • The Pension Scheme Registry (PSR) number for the NOW: Pensions Trust: 12005124  
          • Our address: NOW: Pension Trustee Limited, 1 Tower Place West, Tower Place, London EC3R 5BU  

          TPR estimates it takes about 15 minutes to declare your compliance once you’ve collected all the information.