AE commentary 2014-2015

Introduction
Automatic enrolment
Automatic enrolment began in October 2012, and is being rolled out
in a phased approach so that larger employers have had their staging
date – which is the date from which an employer’s legal duties begin –
before smaller employers. Businesses with over 250 employees had their
staging date from 1 October 2012 to 1 February 2014, those with 50 to
249 employees (medium employers) – from 1 April 2014 to 1 April 2015,
and small and micro employers began to be subject to their duties from
June 2015. New businesses that started up after October 2012 have
been given a staging date from 1 May 2017.
Who must be automatically enrolled?
Employers must enrol all eligible jobholders into a qualifying pension
scheme and make contributions. This applies to workers aged at least
22 but under state pension age, usually working in the UK and earning
more than £10,000 per year (see Table 1), unless they are already a
member of a pension scheme that meets certain criteria set out in law. A
worker who is automatically enrolled into a scheme has the option to opt
out of it within one month if they choose 1 .
Contributions are being phased in so that from 1 October 2018 they will
increase to 8% of qualifying earnings, of which a minimum of 3% must
come from the employer.
Table 1: Categories of worker
Earnings
Lower earnings threshold
or below
More than lower earnings
threshold up to and including
the earnings trigger for
automatic enrolment
Over earnings trigger for
automatic enrolment
Age (inclusive)
16-21 22-SPA 2 SPA-74
Noneligible
jobholder
Entitled worker
Non-eligible jobholder
Eligible
jobholder
Noneligible
jobholder
1
More detailed guidance
covering every aspect of
automatic enrolment is
available at www.tpr.gov.
uk/detailed-guidance
2
State Pension Age.
Automatic enrolment Commentary and analysis: April 2014 – March 2015 7