Auto Enrolment is the result of a piece of Government legislation which became effective in 2012 and is still being rolled out. The purpose of the legislation is to ensure that that every employer auto enrols all ‘eligible jobholders’ into a Qualifying Workplace Pension Scheme (QWPS). This process is called Auto Enrolment.

This will affect every GP Practice and each will have a staging date. This is the date that the practice must begin assessing their employees and auto enrolling eligible staff. Each practice will receive notification from The Pension Regulator approximately 12 months before their staging date. You can find out your staging date at any time by logging onto The Pensions Regulator website and typing in your employers PAYE reference.

Auto Enrolment legislation will mean changes for your practice. When you reach your staging date, you must begin assessing your workforce at every payroll run thereafter and you must auto enrol any ‘eligible jobholders’ into a QWPS on an ongoing basis. THE NHSPS is a QWPS. All employees who are members of the NHSPS are already in a QWPS and can be discounted. Any employees assessed as eligible jobholders and who are not in the NHSPS but who are eligible to join the scheme, should be auto enrolled into the NHSPS. If you have eligible jobholders who are not members of the NHSPS already and who are not eligible to join, they scheme MUST be auto enrolled into an alternative scheme which meets QWPS standards. It is therefore necessary for each practice to have an alternative scheme available to the NHSPS in order to be able to fulfil their responsibilities under the new legislation. This means that each practice must begin planning a number of months before their staging in order to ensure that everything is in place in time.

In addition to assessing and auto enrolling employees, each practice will have to communicate the implications of the new legislation to staff. Each employee must receive communication after the practice’s staging date to let them know how the new rules have affected them. This includes all current members of the NHSPS.

The auto enrolment process begins with employee payroll assessment and this process is key. It is therefore very important that each practice is aware of the software that they intend to use for the purposes of assessment and reporting. Generally the best place for this is within the payroll software if this is possible. It is therefore very important to liaise with your payroll provider as soon as is practical to ascertain what they can offer in terms of auto enrolment support.

There is a wealth of information available on The Pension Regulators website and the NHS website regarding auto enrolment and the new employer responsibilities. There is also sample employee communications available from The Pensions Regulator and there is also likely to be letters available from your payroll provider should they offer an auto enrolment payroll module.

Please note; Practice Managers shouldn’t require expensive consultancy to guide them through the process. If you are approached by accountants or other financial advisers / consultancies feel free to contact us for a second opinion as you may end up paying for ‘advice’ and/or ‘support’ you don’t actually require. With the right information, which is freely available the process is relatively straight-forward!

Sources of information:
The Pensions Regulator. Website: www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk
NHS Employers. Website: www.nhsemployers.org
Blackett Walker is authorised & regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Written by: Kevin Walker
Tel: 0191 653 1022

http://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/bw-medical-accountants