Page 176 - Demo

DO WE HAVE TO PROVIDE PENSIONS FOR OUR STAFF?
If an organisation employs at least one person and deducts tax and national insurance contributions from an employee’s wages it will be considered an employer and will have certain legal duties. A comparatively new law means that every employer in the UK must automatically enrol eligible workers in a workplace pension scheme and make mandatory minimum contributions provided the employee satis es the following conditions:
Ÿ Works in the UK
Ÿ Earns more than £10,000 a year
Ÿ Aged between 22 and state pension age
Ÿ Not already enrolled in a qualifying pension scheme at work
An organisation will not have to automatically enrol a worker if they are given evidence of a lifetime allowance protection such as a certi cate from HMRC.
All employers must make minimum contributions. At present an employer must pay at least 1% of their employee’s "qualifying earnings" into the workplace pension. Although a worker will be automatically enrolled, they have the right to opt-out of the workplace pension scheme.
Each employer should check the date by which these rules will apply to them.
WHAT RIGHTS DO VOLUNTEERS HAVE?
There is no technical legal de nition of “volunteer”. A charity should super cially assess what are the arrangements it operates in respect of people it calls volunteers so as to be as certain as possible whether these volunteers are of a speci c legal category e.g. employee, worker, self-employed.
Those working without payment, or any form of contract at all, are usually considered to be volunteers. A volunteer agreement may be put in place that sets out the training that will be delivered, the level of supervision and support to be given, whether the volunteer will be covered under the organisation’s employer or public liability insurance, any health and safety issues, and nally, any expenses the organisation will cover.
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