Know your duties start date

Your duties start date is when your Automatic Enrolment duties started. This date is important as on each 3-year anniversary (and approximately each 3rd year after that) you will need to go through cyclical re-enrolment.

New employers have tasks that they must complete in order to comply with their Automatic Enrolment legal duties, as soon as they employ their first member of staff.

What is a duties start date?

If you become an employer for the first time, you immediately have legal duties for the new member of staff. These duties apply from the first day the first member of staff started working for the company. This is known as their duties start date.

Your company must comply with their workplace pension reform duties straight away.

When someone is about to employ a worker for the first time, they need to take certain steps in preparation for taking on staff, such as determining whether they need to register as an employer with HMRC, or taking out liability insurance. Getting ready for Automatic Enrolment is just one of these steps.

As soon as the new member of staff begins employment, the employer should be ready to comply with their legal duties.

New employers after 1 October 2017 don't have a staging date, so you can get started by telling The Pensions Regulator who should be their point of contact for Automatic Enrolment.