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Employers must automatically enrol all new and eligible employees who are:  

• aged 22 to state pension age
• earning over £10,000 a year
• Working or ordinarily work in the UK  
• Not already part of a qualifying workplace pension scheme

For Auto-Enrolment (AE) purposes, an employer only needs to assess and enrol UK workers into a scheme. Therefore, as an employer, you need to assess if a worker is working or ordinarily works in the UK under their contract. 

Working in the UK: If a worker works wholly in the UK, then they can be considered to be working in the UK. By working wholly in the UK, The Pensions Regulator means:

• the worker’s contract provides for the worker to be based at a location in the UK, and the worker does, in practice, work all the time in the UK, and
• there is no simultaneous employment relationship between the worker and an employer outside the UK (e.g. the worker is not someone who has been sent to the UK by an affiliated employer, for example on a secondment.)

Ordinarily working in the UK: Where a worker is not wholly working in the UK (the work they do is also done outside of the UK), it will need to be established if the worker ordinarily works in the UK.

In most cases, workers who fall into this category will be workers who do not have one fixed workplace (for example, they move around in their work). To decide if a worker ordinarily works in the UK, an employer needs to consider:

• If the worker is resident in the UK
• where the worker begins and ends their work
• where the worker's headquarters in
• whether they pay NI and or tax in the UK
• the currency they are paid in
• the worker's contract of employment
• seconded workers

More details can be found here.

If you have a worker that should be exempt from AE due to not working in the UK, please enter that into Husky's system so that the worker is not assessed for Auto-Enrolment. 

Yes, salary exchange can be introduced into an existing plan as well as new plans.

A salary exchange agreement can normally be altered, for example, if someone opts out of an automatic enrolment scheme with salary exchange.

For any other circumstances, it depends on how the agreement has been set up. It may be necessary to change the terms of a salary sacrifice arrangement where a lifestyle change significantly alters an employee’s financial circumstances.

This may include:

• changes to circumstances directly arising as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19)
• marriage
• divorce
• partner becoming redundant or pregnant

• Video Guide for Employers
• Video Guide for Employees 

What are the benefits of a Salary Exchange scheme?

• Employers save on NI contributions while employees can save on tax as well as NI contributions.
• Employers can reinvest any NIC savings in their business or their employees’ pension plans.
• Employees receive a higher pension contribution or take-home pay, depending on how the arrangement’s set up.
• Employees can benefit from a bigger retirement fund, if NIC savings are reinvested back into their plan.

Are there any possible drawbacks to a Salary Exchange scheme?

• Lower life cover (employers generally calculate entitlement as a multiple of salary which would be lower)
• Lower borrowing available on mortgages (as per life cover the borrowing level is determined by a multiple of a lower salary)
• Entitlement to state benefits eg Statutory Maternity Pay and the State Pension may be affected if your salary falls below the level at which you pay National Insurance contributions.
• The employee might not be able to revert to their old (pre-sacrifice) salary if personal circumstances change. The employer would have to agree to a further change to the employee's contract of employment.

Those savings can be re-invested into the employee’s workplace pension pot to provide an even better employee benefit and encourage them to join.  With Husky, you can also split those savings into specific %s so you can share the savings between the company and the employee.

You should speak to your tax credits office before you decide whether to participate in a Salary Exchange Scheme. You must also notify your tax credits office once you have exchanged your salary.

However, in broad terms, as your gross salary reduces (and employer pension contributions are disregarded) your entitlement to tax credits may increase. If you currently make personal contributions to a pension scheme, then you are currently entitled to deduct the gross amount of the pension contribution from your earnings to calculate your tax credits. In this situation, therefore, there should be little or no change to your tax credits entitlement.

Leaving a salary sacrifice exchange is always an option, and you should be able to do so without penalty if the arrangement isn’t working for you.