Postponements for Pensions Automatic Enrolment

Employers can opt to use a postponement period of up to 3 months before assessing a worker for automatic enrolment. Once you set up your postponement rules, the Pensions Automatic Enrolment Assessment process automatically determines if a postponement applies to each employee assessment.

There are two distinct types of postponement:

• Worker Postponement: This can apply when an employee is first employed. This is regardless of whether or not the person is assessed as an eligible jobholder and does not apply at any other time. For example, to avoid part period deductions in the first period of employment, or in cases where the employee is on a short-term contract.

• The Eligible Jobholder Postponement: This can apply in these cases:

  • When an employee is assessed as an eligible jobholder.

  • After an earlier worker postponement provided there's a gap between the assessments where the employee is not an eligible jobholder.

  • If there's a gap each time between the eligible jobholder assessments, this can apply more than once. For example, to prevent automatic enrolment of a low paid employee who has an annual ‘spike’ because of a one-off payment.

It's useful to understand the types of postponements available and the rules for each.

Override Default Postponement Values

You can override the organization-level default values at the payroll relationship level using the Calculation Cards task. Complete the fields on the employee's Pensions Automatic Enrolment card:

• Overriding Worker Postponement Rule

• Overriding Eligible Jobholder Postponement Rule

You can also enter values for these fields to explicitly enforce a postponement:

• Active Postponement Type

• Active Postponement Rule

• Active Postponement End Date

The assessment process validates the postponement end date entered to ensure that it doesn't exceed the later of:

• Staging date plus 3 calendar months

• Employment start date plus 3 calendar months for entitled worker postponements

• Eligibility date plus 3 calendar months for eligible jobholder postponements

How Postponements Are Processed

For each employee, the automatic enrolment process performs these tasks:

1. Checks to see if a postponement is currently in effect. If so, it stops the assessment process. If not, the process continues.

2. Uses the applicable postponement rules and formulas to determine if a worker or eligible jobholder postponement applies at this time.

3. If it applies, it updates the Active Postponement Type, Active Postponement Rule, and Active Postponement End Date fields on the worker's calculation card accordingly. The assessment process stops.

4. If it doesn't apply, then the assessment process continues.