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10 Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition | 9/2016 BUSINESS Pension scheme automatic enrolment Obligations and duties for dental practices By Amanda Maskery, UK New legislation came into force in June 2012 that will eventually oblige all employers in the UK to automatically enrol certain work- ers in a pension scheme and make contributions towards it. The prac- tical arrangements of this are not straightforward in all cases and the need for careful preparation should not be under-estimated. The new duties are being implemented month by month over a five-and-half-year staging period that began on 1 October 2012. Larger employers have been obliged to start before smaller ones. Staging dates will depend on the number of workers in a PAYE scheme. In brief, employers with between 50 and 249 workers had staging dates that ran from 1 April 2014 to 1 April 2015 and those with fewer than 50 workers (which applies to most practice owners) have staging dates between 1 June 2015 and 1 April 2017. New busi- nesses have staging dates at the end of the overall timetable, up to 1 February 2018. As employers, practice owners should be thinking about how they are going to implement the changes to ensure they are fully compliant with the law when the requirements take effect for them. The new duties require employers to automatically enrol eligible job- holders in their own qualifying pension scheme or the National Employment Savings Trust, a gov- ernment saving scheme. They fur- ther require employers to make contributions that will gradually increase over a period of six years, from 1 per cent to 3 per cent by 2019. From the date employers be- come subject to the new duties, they will have to automatically enrol any eligible jobholders in an enrolment scheme, unless a jobholder is already an active member of a qualifying scheme at the practice. That may sound straightforward, but there is more to it. First, any existing pension arrangement has to be reviewed to ensure this meets the stipu- lated requirements. Not all cur- rent stakeholder schemes will. It is possible that current pension arrangements will have to be amended and an appropriate al- ternative scheme will have to be implemented. There are three categories of jobholders under the new legislation: eligible jobholders, non-eligible jobholders and enti- tled workers. Eligible jobholders are enrolled automatically and those who have opted out need to be re-enrolled every three years. As employers, practice owners have to provide these em- ployees with mandatory informa- tion about automatic enrolment and pay mandatory minimum contributions towards their pen- sion. Non-eligible jobholders are workers who do not fit the eligibil- ity criteria for automatic enrol- ment and are defined as those earning over £10,000 per annum and aged between 16 and 21 or be- tween state pension age and 74, or those earning between £5,772 and £10,000 per annum and aged be- tween 16 and 74. While employers are not required to automatically enrol these workers, such employ- ees can opt in to the scheme and, if they do so, employers may make minimum contributions on their behalf. ADA CERP is a service of the American Dental Association to assist dental professionals in identifying quality providersof continuing dental education. ADA CERP does not approve or endorse individual courses or instructors, nor does it imply acceptance of credit hours by boards of dentistry. Join the largest educational network in dentistry! www.DTStudyClub.com – education everywhere and anytime – live and interactive webinars – more than 1,000 archived courses – a focused discussion forum – free membership – no travel costs – no time away from the practice – interaction with colleagues and experts across the globe – a growing database of scientific articles and case reports – ADA CERP-recognized credit administration register for FREE Dental Tribune Study Club AD