Re-enrolment

Why are you being re-enrolled?

If you ask to leave your employer’s workplace pension you may be automatically re-enrolled at a later date. Every 3 years, your employer reaches their ‘re-enrolment date’. At that point, the government requires your employer to put you back into the pension scheme.

More information on who should and shouldn’t be re-enrolled can be found on The Pensions Regulator website.

Benefits of being re-enrolled

The great thing about being re-enrolled is that it’s not just you who pays in. Your employer and the government (through tax relief) contribute too. It’s extra ‘free’ money.

This money builds up in your pension pot and you can spend it when you retire, or any time after you reach 55 (the government proposes to increase this to age 57 from 2028).

What do you need to do?

Good news. You don’t need to do anything. Your employer will take care of everything and re-enrol you back into The People’s Pension.

What is the process?

You should receive a letter from your employer telling you that they’re re-enrolling you – so if you don’t hear anything, get in touch with them.

Once we receive your first contribution – this can take up to 6 weeks – we’ll send you joiner information containing all the information you need.

If you want to, you can ask to stop making contributions. However, you can’t do this until you’ve been re-enrolled and received your joiner information.

How much money will you need for retirement?

Find out using our retirement planner. It shows you how much money you may need and could have in retirement. You can find the retirement planner in your account.

Further information

Our knowledge base is full of lots of information about saving for later life with a workplace pension plan.

Or, you can get more details about auto-enrolment at www.gov.uk/workplace-pensions

And if you think you might need further advice, check out our guidance and advice for members page that talks about the different sources of help and support available.

What employers need to do

Choose your re-enrolment date

You can choose any date in a 6-month window, centred on the 3rd anniversary of your staging/duties start date or your previous re-enrolment date. This can be 3 months prior to or 3 months after 3rd anniversary of your staging/duties start date. On this date your payroll, HR and software processes must be ready to go.

Make sure you tell us your re-enrolment date. If you don’t, our system may stop you uploading your employee data.

The date you choose will be the centre point of your re-enrolment window in 3 years’ time.

Some things to consider

• It’s just 1 date per employer, so if you operate more than 1 PAYE payroll, consider a date which best aligns to all the payrolls you operate.
• Unlike your original auto-enrolment sign-up, you can’t use postponement for re-enrolment.

Who needs to be re-enrolled?

You’ll need to re-enrol eligible employees who have previously opted out or ceased active membership of your workplace pension. An eligible employee is someone who:

• normally works in the UK
• earns above £10,000 a year (for the current tax year)
• is aged between 22 and State Pension age.

You’ll also need to re-enrol employees who have stayed in the pension scheme but are paying below the minimum contribution level.

You can use the re-enrolment report in your Online Services account to help identify which employees need to be re-enrolled.

You don’t need to re-enrol (but you can if you want to) employees who:

• are making active contributions to your workplace pension at, or above, the minimum contribution level
• have opted out in the last 12 months
• have not yet had an auto-enrolment date
• are subject to postponement
• are not classed as an “eligible jobholder”
• meet the definition of a ‘qualifying person’ for the purposes of separate UK legislation on occupational pension schemes and cross-border activities within the European Union
• have handed in their notice to leave within 3 months
• have been paid a winding up lump-sum payment while employed by you and then have stopped working for you after the payment was paid but have then been re-employed by you.

Even if you don’t need to re-enrol any employees, you still need to re-declare your compliance.

Re-enrol your employees

It’s easy to re-enrol your employees using your Online Services account.

Your employees must be re-enrolled on the re-enrolment date.

The exact process depends on how you assess employee pension contributions.

Do we assess your employees for you?

If so, you’ll need to prepare your employee data so we know who needs to be assessed for re-enrolment.

• On the submission of employee data before your re-enrolment date, please include the employees who need to be re-assessed for re-enrolment and include ‘RE’ in the ‘Starter/Leaver Flag’ column (you must ensure this is mapped when uploading your file).
• We’ll assess them under auto-enrolment rules and re-enrol those who are assessed as ‘eligible’.
• You can then remove the ‘RE’ flag on your next submission.

Do you use a payroll provider to assess your employees?

If so, check whether your payroll provider will be able to manage automatic re-enrolment for you.

• They may be managing the process for you automatically, but you’ll still need to re-declare your compliance with The Pensions Regulator.
• Your payroll provider can assess which of your employees are eligible jobholders out of those who’ve stopped contributing. They’ll let us know which of your employees should be re-enrolled.
• You may need to advise them to add a new auto-enrolment date to the data file for each employee you need to re-enrol.
• You may also need to advise your payroll provider on whether you want to re-enrol any of your exempt employees.

Do you assess your employees manually?

If so, you’ll need to check your employee data includes everyone who should be re-enrolled.

• You’ll need to add any employees that need to be re-enrolled when you submit your employee data to us.

You, or your payroll provider, will still need to continue ongoing assessment of all your employees as usual to keep their pension contributions accurate.

Tell your employees

It’s important you keep your employees up to date with what’s happening – it could come as a bit of a surprise that they’re being re-enrolled. Would you like help to communicate re-enrolment news with your employees?

Within 6 weeks of your re-enrolment date, we’ll write to your workers to make sure they understand their workplace pension – including that they have one month to opt out.

Re-declare your compliance with The Pensions Regulator

You’re legally required to re-declare your compliance on The Pensions Regulator website to show you’ve complied with your employer duties.

If you don’t complete it in time you may be fined.

You have to re-declare within 5 months of the 3-year anniversary of your staging date, duties start date, or your previous re-enrolment date and once you’ve assessed and re-enrolled your employees (even if you have no one to re-enrol).

You’ll need to include details of yourself, the company, PAYE schemes and your workforce, as well as our details:

• Occupational pension scheme
• Pension scheme name – The People’s Pension Scheme
• Pension scheme provider address – Manor Royal, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 9QP
• PSRN – 12005993

When you’ve submitted your re-declaration to The Pensions Regulator, they’ll send you an acknowledgement letter. This completes your re-enrolment duties until your next automatic re-enrolment window in around 3 years.

Even if you don’t need to re-enrol any employees, you still need to re-declare your compliance.

Resources to help you

• Communication templates to help you tell your employees they’re being re-enrolled
• Re-enrolment: the 3-year cycle to help you through automatic re-enrolment
• How to complete re-enrolment with The People’s Pension
• Guidance for employers on re-enrolment from The Pensions Regulator

And don’t forget to check out our Employers help and support for any other questions you might have on offering a workplace pension.

What your employer clients need to do

1. Choose their re-enrolment date
2. Work out who needs to be re-enrolled
3. Re-enrol their employees
4. Write to employees they have put back into their pension scheme
5. Re-declare their compliance with The Pensions Regulator

Re-enrolment resources you can use

Employee re-enrolment template letter to help your clients tell their employees they’re being re-enrolled.

Automatic re-enrolment: the 3-year cycle to help employers through automatic re-enrolment.

When they re-declare their compliance, they’ll need to include our details:

• Occupational pension scheme
• Pension scheme name – The People’s Pension Scheme
• Pension scheme provider address – Manor Royal, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 9QP
• PSRN – 12005993

Detailed guidance for employers on automatic re-enrolment from The Pensions Regulator

And don’t forget, there’s our Advisers help and support for any other questions you might have about The People’s Pension.

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