FOI reference - FOI-142
Date - 29 July 2023
Request
What statutory, regulatory, Act of Parliament, Parliamentary Law or any other power is used to deduct pension payments from an employees pay without their consent.
Response
I confirm that we hold the information you have requested. Please find details and links to this information below.
Part 2 of the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Automatic Enrolment) Regulations 2010 provides the mechanism for employers to enrol their jobholders into Pension Schemes, as well as the procedure for jobholders opting out and receiving refunds of any deducted wages.
The following sections of the Pensions Act 2008 (PA08) require employers to enrol, re-enrol and deduct pension contributions from eligible jobholders into a workplace pension scheme:
- Section 3 of the PA08 provides the general duty for employers to automatically enrol eligible jobholders into a pension scheme. The eligibility criteria are that the jobholder is 22 years old, has not reached pensionable age, and earns more than £10k per annum.
- Section 5 of the PA08 provides the duty for employers to re-enrol eligible jobholders into a pension scheme if they are not already in one, and the timing for this re-enrolment comes from section 6 of the PA08 (no less than 3 years after the worker’s automatic enrolment date).
- Section 33 of the PA08 provides the duty for employers to deduct pensions contributions from jobholders’ salaries where they are enrolled into a qualifying pension scheme.
In general terms all UK employers are required to enrol their eligible workers into a pension scheme and failure to do so and make the necessary deductions and pay them over to a scheme could result in both civil penalties and possible civil and criminal proceedings.
Section 37 and 38 of the PA08 states that the Pensions Regulator (TPR) may issue an unpaid contributions notice to an employer if it is of the opinion that relevant contributions have not been paid on or before the due date. These also confirm that employer is required to remedy the situation if the required sums are not paid into the scheme. Failure to comply with an unpaid contribution notice can result in penalty notices being issued to an employer by TPR.