Direct payments, personal assistants and automatic workplace pension enrolment

Thought it would be worth sharing some information on the issue of automatic enrolment to workplace pension schemes for people employing personal assistants through direct payments, which has come up as an issue via Disability Benefits Consortium (thanks to Sally West of Age UK and Eugene Grant of Scope).

People employing personal assistants or carers using direct payments will have new pension obligations when automatic enrolment is introduced in the same ways as they have tax and NI obligations. However, although automatic enrolment will start to be phased in this year, employers with less than 50 employeees will not be brought into automatic enrolment until 2015 at the earliest.

DWP have also said that where an individual employs people directly to assist with their care, they will need to comply with this obligation. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) will be writing to all employers to let them know when they will need to begin automatically enrolling their workers.

There is more information available for employers on the TPR website http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/pensions-reform.aspx

They have produced a Workplace Pension toolkit which provides some basic straightforward information on automatic enrolment. There is a basic facts booklet, case studies and signposting through their contacts pages, to other websites providing further information on automatic enrolment for employers and individuals. The toolkit can be found at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/workplacepension

If you have any queries or feedback about the toolkit, or to get the latest information about the workplace pension reforms by email, write to them at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)