29th July 2016

The Pensions Regulator - Industry Liaison update July 2016

 Automatic enrolment commentary and analysis report 2015/16

Some key highlights from our latest annual update just published:

• 66% of all employees are active members of a pension scheme, compared with just 47% in 2012.
• From 16 October 2015 to 31 March 2016, 185,107 employers completed the online Duties Checker.
• The majority of employers left to stage (57%) will be micro employers (employing 1-4 people), and of this micro employer sub-total, just over a third (34%) will employ just one person. 

The AE Commentary & Analysis 2016 document can be found at www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/doc-library/research-analysis#s16194

• Latest staging forecast 

The 2016 edition of our ‘Automatic Enrolment Commentary & Analysis’ document, includes an updated estimate of the number of employers expected to be subject to the new duties in the coming two years. Since our last forecast, in which we estimated that 1.8m employers would be subject to AE duties, we have obtained access to real-time information (RTI) from HMRC and received feedback directly from employers. This information has improved the accuracy of our data and shows us that a significant number of businesses staging in the summer of 2017 are single person directors (who are not employers for the purposes of the automatic enrolment).  

We have therefore removed them from the latest forecast and now estimate between 1.32m and 1.46m employers being subject to AE duties. Importantly, there is little change in the number of employers who will need to put workers into a pension scheme, which will be up to 950,000.

• Workie advertising campaign 

The Workie advertising campaign recommenced on Monday 18 July across various media, including TV, radio and digital display. As well as evolving our activity on Facebook and LinkedIn, we’re also trying Instagram for the first time. As before, the call to action for employer activity on digital channels, will be to go directly to TPR’s employer landing page, but non-digital channels (where activity is shared with DWP audiences) we will direct to www.workplacepensions.gov.uk.

• Latest declaration of compliance statistics 

The latest report showing the number of employers that have successfully completed the declaration of compliance is now available on our website at www.tpr.gov.uk/docs/automatic-enrolment-declaration-of-compliance-monthly-report.pdf

The report covers the period to the end of June 2016 and shows both initial declarations and the employers that have completed re-enrolment.

• Tracker results

The latest AE employer and intermediary tracker results are now available at www.tpr.gov.uk/doc-library/research-analysis.aspx#s16192 andwww.tpr.gov.uk/doc-library/research-analysis.aspx#s16193

• Awareness and understanding of automatic enrolment is now almost universal amongst business advisers - and more than 9 out of 10 are now helping clients meet their duties, the latest research shows.
• Workplace pensions are becoming ‘business as usual’ across the UK, with employers confident they can comply.
• The research - based on surveys carried out between February and April 2016 – also shows that understanding amongst small employers saw a significant rise from 68% to 81%.
• Executive director of automatic enrolment Charles Counsell said:

“Advisers are not just ready to support their clients with automatic enrolment, but have been doing so on a daily basis for some months.More than 9 in 10 small employers are now aware of automatic enrolment and there is now almost universal engagement from business advisers helping their clients to carry out their duties.

This is the first employers’ survey since large numbers of small and micro employers have began to visit TPR’s website for help in meeting their duties. It’s great to see such positive feedback, with 79% of the employers who used our website finding all or most of what they needed.”

• Events

The industry liaison team continues to speak at events across the UK and, whilst many of these focus on the main employer duties for automatic enrolment (including the new regulations from April 2016), we are also able to cover a range of other subjects relating to the legislation such as:

• Re-enrolment (cyclical and immediate)
• Compliance & enforcement
• Myths and misunderstandings quiz
• Providing AE services as a non-regulated business adviser
• The employer journey, including completing the duties checker
• Choosing a pension scheme and factors to consider, including tax relief
• Sector specific events, for example, for care professionals.

If you would like us to attend and speak at an event, please complete the online request form athttps://secure.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/speaker-request.aspx and ensure you put my name as the proposed speaker to ensure the request comes directly to our team. This does not guarantee that I will be the one that attends, as it will be subject to availability within the team and also meeting the criteria.

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