Auto enrolment: employers with no employees

19 December 2014

The Pensions Regulator has issued clarification to cover the position where an employer or recent employer has no employees at their staging date.

In relation to companies where there are only directors and no other staff, the regulator says:

“In a director-only company like this where none of the directors have a contract of employment, each director will not be a worker for the purposes of automatic enrolment duties. Similarly in a director-only company where only one director has a contract of employment but the others do not, each director will also not be a worker.

We are looking into the possibility of creating an online service to enable these type of companies to inform the Regulator that they do not have any workers. In the meantime, and only if they receive a letter from the Regulator, they should they inform us of this in writing.

They should send an email to [email protected] stating the following:

I confirm that [Company name] is a director-only company where:

a) none of the directors are employed under a contract of employment, or

b) only one director is employed under a contract of employment but the other directors are not

and is not an employer for the purposes of automatic enrolment.

The letter code for the company [a 10 digit number which can be found on all letters sent from the Regulator]

The PAYE scheme(s) reference

Name, email address, address and telephone number of contact at the company

If the company’s circumstances change so that there are at least two people working for the company under contracts of employment (whether directors or other staff) then they should advise us of this as soon as possible.”

However readers should note that the guidance says that “You must complete your declaration of complianceeven if you don’t have anyone to automatically enrol.”