Leaving a job just after pension requirement comes in?

[RattieOfCatan]

My employer and I are at a loss as to what to do about this. I have no interest in a pension plan for two weeks and she won't be hiring anybody once I leave. I go on maternity leave in mid-August and the paid element runs out in mid-May next year. I plan to resign at that point or slightly earlier if suitable work comes up, but we were planning for me to resign by mid-May at the latest.

Boss has realised that she will be expected to provide a pension from the 1st of May next year. It's the any way of us both opting out of this? As I said before, she won't be taking on anybody else once I leave in August, so she isn't keen to be "forced" into setting up a pension scheme that I have no interest in using for the last two weeks of my maternity leave, especially if I do start working in a new position or set up shop in my self employed venture before May!

My understanding was that employees can opt out, the requirement is just that employers have to offer a work place pension and auto-enroll employees unless they've opted out (rather than them having to opt in). That is unless the government has changed their minds again..?

Yes'm you can opt out as long as you confirm it in writing to your employer. They will contact you again in 3 years and auto-enrol you then, and you could choose to enrol at any point in the interim (I know in your circs this doesn't apply). The Rules

(*random 'm there, sorry - perhaps my tablet thinks I am in Gone with the Wind...)

Employers can postpone for 3 months from their staging date. Pensions Regulator website has details.

Postponement would be the thing to use, so the employer does not have to setup a scheme. With an opt out, the employer still has to have a scheme in place.

thanks! I will let her know about postponing! I thought that I should be able to opt out as I have in previous jobs but you never know!

As she said to me yesterday, she doesn't want the extra admin to set up the scheme when I'm leaving (and don't want it), she knows that she won't be getting another nanny as the youngest is in nursery and starts school next September so from then on its mostly housekeeping and school runs, which she can cover more easily!