Does your organisation need to certify its pension auto-enrolment status?

Certification is part of the requirements of Automatic Enrolment (AE) if an employer is not using Qualifying Earnings (QE) as its definition of pensionable pay. Qualifying earnings is all income between the upper and lower earnings limits.

As most employers do not use QE as the method of calculating pensionable pay, the AE regulations allow employers to calculate contributions in a way that meets the requirements of one of the three 'Sets' described in the legislation. Each of the three certification sets have different minimum contribution rates.

The rules stipulate that an employer must certify contributions rates at their AE staging date and every 18 months thereafter. The AE Certificate must be retained for 6 years to comply with the legislation and potential inspection by The Pensions Regulator.

To help explain this in more detail, Tim Parker from Succession Employee Benefits Solutions (SEBS), shared his experience with members of the network during two webinars in September and October 2023.  Download a copy of Tim's Powerpoint presentation for more details.