Half of employers have set up a specific project team to handle auto-enrolment within their organisations, a new report from the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) has found.

Forty per cent of employers are looking at their payroll department to take the lead for implementing auto-enrolment, followed by the HR department (29 per cent) and the pension provider/department (13 per cent).

The CIPP research paper to understand business readiness for automatic enrolment showed that 69 per cent of employers feel that HR will oversee the member communications on auto-enrolment, followed by the payroll department (35 per cent) and the pension provider/department (26 per cent).

When it comes to preparing for the changes, 74 per cent of employers have carried out a workforce assessment and recorded the number of workers in their PAYE schemes as of 1 April 2012, while the same number do not intend to amend their staging date. Half of businesses already have a qualifying scheme in place, with a further 35 per cent needing to make changes to their current scheme to meet the qualifying criteria.

CIPP associate director of policy, research and strategic visibility Karen Thomson FCIPP MSc said: “As we all know, 2012 is a big year for the payroll and pension industry, with the pilot scheme in readiness for the introduction of real time information (RTI) as a statutory requirement from April 2013, as well as automatic enrolment commencing for the largest of employers in the next few months.

“Our research has indicated that the onus for implementation is on the payroll department and we are confident that the majority of payroll and pension professionals are fully aware of their responsibilities surrounding automatic enrolment and are making significant headway in their preparations.

“However, nearly a third (33 per cent) of employers have admitted that they are not aware of automatic enrolment legislation, which means that a lot of work has to be undertaken by payroll and pension departments as well as payroll service and software providers to educate businesses not only on the regulations but what needs to be done in order to be compliant.

The CIPP questioned 267 participants from a wide range of sectors and consists of employers, pension providers, payroll software developers and those who provide payroll services to employers.

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