When will the changes affect my company?

First things first, you need to work out the date by which you must have your pension scheme in place. This is called your staging date.

The Government is introducing the pension reform in stages according to how many employees your company employs. Your staging date depends on the size of your largest PAYE scheme as at 1 April 2012.

Employers with the greatest number of employees will need to have a pension scheme in place by October 2012. Smaller companies will follow over the next four years.

Find out your staging date.

Bringing your staging date forwards

Companies cannot delay the date for introducing the pension changes, but they can bring the changes forward. You can choose a date from a list available from The Pensions Regulator.

You must tell The Pensions Regulator that you are changing your staging date at least a month before the date you have chosen.

Small businesses

If you're a small business with fewer than 10 employees and you share a PAYE scheme, you won't be bound by the staging date of the total size of that PAYE scheme.

The Pensions Regulator has put special measures in place for small companies affected in this way.