With summer comes an influx of seasonal workers to help on Britain’s farms. The Work Place Pension Reform Act was introduced in October 2012.    It states that all eligible employees must be automatically enrolled in a qualifying work place pension.

This also impacts seasonally employed workers. The thresholds for auto enrolment are:

• Aged 22 or over
• Earning over a certain amount in any one tax year
• Ordinarily works in the UK
• Not already in a qualifying pension scheme

You can use the Pension Regulator’s seasonal employment tool to work out what legal duties apply to your organisation and what you will need to do.

In December 2016 the government announced that it would conduct a review of pensions and auto enrolment.   This could lead in the future to changes in auto enrolment for seasonal & some part-time employees. The review was a result of pressure from business groups and the NFU (National Farmers Union).

Currently employers of short term works are able to delay auto enrolment pensions by three months.   Groups are currently lobbying to have this time frame reviewed and possibly extended.

The skills and employment advisor for NFU recently said “Our main concern is that the auto enrolment of seasonal workers is an unnecessary burden on farm businesses with little or no benefit to the worker, who is unlikely to draw on the resulting very small pension pot”.

As yet the government has not indicated an exact date for when the review will be published, but it has stated that it intends to publish the review towards the end of 2017.  Considering the current situation surrounding Brexit the review may well take longer.

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