Re-enrolment and re-declaration (2024)

Re-enrolment and re-declarationare two stages inthe process thatyour client goes through every three years. Your clientmustre-enrolstaff who left their pension, or reduced their contributions, back into ascheme that can be used for automatic enrolment, and complete a re-declaration of compliance. The declaration must be completed within five calendar months of the third anniversary of their staging date.

Our re-enrolment duties toolwill help your clients work out their responsibilitiesthrough a series of simple steps.

Re-enrolment takesplaceevery three years.Your client:

• must choose a re-enrolment date - if they are carrying out re-enrolment for the first time, we tell your clients to use the third anniversary of their staging date for their convenience, but they can choose any date that falls within a six-month timeframe. Use our re-enrolment tool to see your client's available dates for re-enrolment
• doesn’t need to inform us of their chosen re-enrolment date until they complete their re-declaration of compliance
• must identify eligible staff, re-enrol themwith effect fromtheirre-enrolmentdate, and start contributing to their pension scheme from that date
• must write to eligible staff individually, within six weeks of theirre-enrolment date, to tell them how re-enrolment applies to them-template lettersare available to help them do this
• must complete a re-declaration of compliance withinfive calendar months of the third anniversary of theemployer's staging date
• cannot use postponement (where your client may delay working out who to put into a pension scheme) on any staff who need to be re-enrolled
• should make sure thecontact details theyhave given us are up to date,so we can send them information regarding their re-enrolment duties. They will need to update this using the nominate a contact form, where you can also give your contact details to receive additional communications to help you support your clients

While re-enrolment and re-declaration is a two-stage process for many employers, if your clients have assessed their staff and don't need to re-enrol any of them, then they only need to complete a re-declaration of compliance. They can easily check what they need to do by using our re-enrolment dutiestool.

Your clients will go through re-enrolment every three years, but it's also triggered and needs to be completed immediately if a worker or the pension scheme meets certain criteria.

We tellemployers to use the third anniversary of their staging date as their re-enrolment date, as this helps to simplify the process for them.

However, they can choose any date within a six-month timeframe if they wish - starting three months before, and ending three months after their anniversary date. If your client has already passed the third anniversary of their staging date, but is still within this window, they should still use ourre-enrolment date toolto select their date.

This date can be any day of the month,so for employers whose duties started on 1 September2017, they could choose to re-enrol on any day between 1 June and 30 November 2020.

They must have the same re-enrolment date for all staff they have to re-enrol.

Therefore, where an employer operates more than one pay cycle, for example monthly and weekly, they cannot use one re-enrolment date for monthly paid workers and another for weekly paid workers.

The re-enrolment date will thenbe theeffective start date of membership of a pension scheme.

Please notethat the employer's firstre-enrolment date is based on the employer's original staging date, and not on when an individual member of staff was put into a pension scheme.

It also becomes the start date of the six-week period whenyour clientsneed to writeto affectedstaff andnotify them of theirre-enrolment, and payments into the schememust begin. Pension contributions shouldbe calculated from this date.

Your client should assess any staffwho have left their pension scheme, or reduced their contributions into it, to work out if they need to put them back into the scheme. Thisassessment should be doneon the re-enrolment date.

If your clients are carrying out re-enrolment for the first time, we tell them to use the third anniversary of their staging date as their re-enrolment date, but they can choose a later date if they wish, up to three months after their third anniversary.

Any staff who are:

• aged between 22 and up to State Pension Age
• and earn over £10,000 a year, or £833 a month, or £192 a week

must be put back into the pension scheme. If a member of staff gives notice, or the employer gives them notice, to leave employment before the employer has completed this process, the employer has a choice whether to enrol them or not. The employer also has a choice whether to enrol a director who meets these age and earnings criteria.

If any staff don't meet the age and earnings criteria, then your client doesn't need to do anything with them - until the next re-enrolment date - unless they ask to join the pension scheme.

In all cases, if an employer finds that they don't have any eligible staff to re-enrol, they'll still need to complete their re-declaration of compliance.

Please note that in the same pay cycle your client may be assessing other staff who have never been automatically enrolled before. Postponement can be used for any staff who become eligible for automatic enrolment for the first time -it's only those staff being re-enrolled where it isn't allowed.

If your client has staff to re-enrol, they must ensure they're put into a pension scheme that can be used for automatic enrolment within six weeks of their re-enrolment date.

Your client must then write to them within the same six-week timeframe -lettertemplatesare available to help them do this.The employeronly needs to write to the staff they have re-enrolled.

Once your client has automatically re-enrolled staff, they remain in your client’s scheme unless they choose to opt out, or if theydecide to leave the scheme after the opt-out period has ended.

There is a one-monthtimeframe in which staff can opt out of the scheme. If any staff choose to do so, your client will need to process their opt-out notices and keep records accordingly.

All employers must complete a re-declaration of compliance within five calendar months of the third anniversary of their staging date, the first time they go through re-enrolment. For later re-enrolments, thedate moves to the third anniversary of their most recent re-enrolment date.

An employer’s re-declaration is mandatory and failure to complete it on time means they will not have met all of their duties, which could result in enforcement action, including fines.

They will need tocomplete a re-declaration telling us what theirre-enrolment date was, even if they had no eligiblemembers of staff to re-enrol.

For their convenience, key details entered by the employer when they made theiroriginal declaration of compliance will be automatically filled in from our records on the re-declarationform.

Thishelps to make re-declaring asmoother experience for them, so there's no need to waittocomplete it. We recommend that your clients re-declare as soon as their re-enrolmentduties arecomplete, rather than putting it offuntil the end ofthefive-month period.

Your clientsdon't have to wait until the thirdanniversary of their staging dateto re-declare, and candothisas early as they like after theirre-enrolment date.

While re-enrolment takes place every three years, the re-enrolment date is only based on the third anniversary of your client’s staging date the first time they go through the process.

Three years later, and for all subsequent re-enrolments, the re-enrolment date is based around the third anniversary of theprevious re-enrolment date.

Whether your clientshave staff to put back into their scheme or not, they will have ongoing duties. Then every three years your clients willneed to reassess their staff to see whether they have any who must be put back intoa pension scheme.

Each time your clients pay their staff, they should carry out the following tasks:

Monitor the ages and earnings of their staff

If your clients employ anyone that they've never automatically enrolled, they must continue tomonitor the ages and the amount they pay these staff (including new starters).

If these staff meet the eligibility criteria, they must be put into a pension scheme. Your clients don't need to do this for staff who they've put into a pension scheme and who have chosen to leave it, as they'll be assessed at your client's next re-enrolment.

If your clientshave any staff who are:

• aged between 22 up to state pension age*
• and earn over £10,000 per year, or £833 per month, or £192 per week

...they must be putinto your client'spension scheme, andboth your client and their staff must pay into it.

*if your clientsare unsure what the state pension age is, they can use the GOV.UK state Pension calculator to find out

Manage requests to leave or join their scheme

If any of your client's staff choose to leave theirpension scheme (opt out) within one month of being re-enrolled, your clientsneed to stop taking money out of their pay and arrange a full refund of what has been paid to date. This must happen within one month of their request.

If a member of staff who is not currently a member of your client's automatic enrolment pension scheme asks to join it, your client must put them into the scheme.

Your clientswill have to pay into the pension scheme unless the members ofstaffare:

• aged 16-74
• and earn less than £520 per month or £120 per week

To find out how much your clientswill need to pay, theyshould ask their pension scheme provider.

Keep records

Your clientsshould continue tokeep records of how they’ve met theirlegal duties, including:

• the names and addresses of those they’ve put into a pension scheme
• records that show when money was paid into the pension scheme
• any requests to join or leave their pension scheme
• their pension scheme reference or registry number

In some cases, the employer will need to re-enrol their staff back into an automatic enrolment scheme immediately - some examples of these circ*mstances are given below, and more information can be found in our Detailed guidance.

If a member of staff leaves theirpension schemedue to the actions of the employer or the pension scheme, or if the employer or providerchanges the scheme rules so that it no longer qualifies for automatic enrolment, then themember of staff must beimmediately re-enrolled into ascheme that does.

Staff must also be immediately re-enrolled if thescheme'smanagers or trusteesclose itto any further contributions(known as making the scheme paid-up), or if the scheme's rules don't allow active membership to continue when earnings drop below the lowerlevel ofearnings.

In these cases,the member of staffmust be re-enrolledstraight away as soon as they earn more than £120 per week (£520 per month) -your clients should not wait until the next three-yearly re-enrolment period to re-enrol these workers.

There isa six-week joining timeframe, the right to opt-out, and letters that must be sent to themember of staffby the employer,but postponement cannot be used.

These resources may help if you have more detailed questions on the above:

• Automatic re-enrolment Information on the law surrounding automatic re-enrolment.