Completing a declaration of compliance

When you run a business, it’s a legal requirement to contact The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to let them know that you’ve started auto-pension enrolment for your employees. You’ll need to complete an online declaration of compliance on their website - within five months of your first employee starting. 

Your declaration has to be submitted within five months of your first employee starting work with you - that’s called the duties start date. If you don’t submit it on time you could receive a fixed penalty notice of £400, plus an escalating penalty notice ranging from £50 to £10,000 per day, depending upon the size of your business.

You can choose to delay assessing and auto-enrolling employees into your workplace pension for up to three months, as long as you have a valid business reason for doing it. This is called the postponement period. Your employees will have to be notified though, and they can still choose to opt-in during that time. Postponing will push back your duties start date. 

As the employer, you’re legally responsible for submitting the declaration, even if a payroll provider or accountant assists with setting things up. 

What information do you need to provide?

The key information you'll need to give to TPR includes the following:

• PAYE reference
• Letter code or Accounts Office reference (you can find this on your letter from TPR)
• Details of the pension scheme:
  • Name of the scheme
  • Employer Pension Scheme Reference (EPSR)
  • Pension Scheme Registry (PSR) number (if applicable)
  • Scheme address
• Number of staff enrolled and deferred
• Confirmation of contributions and payment dates

How to complete your declaration

You can do it all online by visiting The Pensions Regulator’s website. You’ll find a checklist there so you can get together all the information you’ll need before you start your declaration.  

What happens after you’ve made your submission?

As an employer you must continue to meet your responsibilities, including checking staff eligibility for an auto-enrolment pension and keeping records. Every three years you’ll also have to re-enrol eligible staff and complete a redeclaration on compliance.

Some common mistakes to avoid

As you’ve seen, not getting your declaration of compliance right can mean you face a large fine. To avoid that you need to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of:

• missing the deadline
• providing incorrect or incomplete information
• assuming a third party has submitted it for you without getting confirmation