TPR updates auto-enrolment advice for large businesses

Large employers bracing themselves for auto-enrolment implementation have been given an updated set of guidelines by The Pensions Regulator.

Bosses of big firms and their advisers are due to start auto-enrolling workers into workplace pension schemes later this year.

The latest TPR guidance has been updated to include the changed Pensions Act 2011 and recent regulations laid in Parliament.

Executive director for employer compliance Charles Counsell said: "The UK's 1.3 million employers are at the centre of workplace pensions reform. These detailed guides, aimed at large employers and pension professionals, cover the full range of the new requirements - including the most recent legislation and a number of areas where professional advisers have requested more detail."

The regulator said it had already written to large employers - which represent more than a third of the UK workforce.

Counsell added: "We're encouraged by the progress that these companies are making in conjunction with their advisers and we believe that these updated guides will provide large employers and their advisers with further assistance in their preparation for automatic enrolment.

"At the other end of the spectrum, we've produced simple educational tools for small and micro companies who will be affected by the reforms later but who should be aware of these reforms now. We'll write to all these employers too as their staging date approaches."

The detailed guides now include new content including:

• Postponement - the circumstances in which employers can use the provision to postpone assessment and automatic enrolment of workers
• DC certification - in light of consultation by the Department for Work & Pensions
• The determination of whether a person is 'ordinarily working' in the UK - including further examples for employers
• Contractual enrolment - including clarification around the use of salary sacrifice and flexible benefits arrangements, as a result of general feedback
• Updated staging information in light of the Government's announcement on 25 January 2012.

Additionally the regulator's website has been updated so that employers can find out their indicative staging date following the government's announcement on the revised staging profile for employers with fewer than 250 staff last month.