How big does a company have to be before it needs to provide a pension scheme?

[mysteryfairy]

My DH went for an interview with a smallish company yesterday. They have 14 employees.

I thought companies with over 5 employees had to have a pension scheme for their staff and contribute a minimum of 3%.

When he asked re their pension provision they said they don't have to provide anything as they are too small.

Are they right?

I think that over 5 employees they have to provide a facility for the employees to pay in to a pension scheme, but do not necessarily have to contribute themselves. Our company stopped paying our pensions contributions during the recession and I looked in to it then as I had thought the same as you.

No company has to make contributions. That's going to change but not for a while.

Companies with 5 or more employees have to provide access to a pension scheme. They don't have to run their own scheme or make contributions, but they have to have a scheme that employees can join and make contributions through the payroll.

So they are still in the wrong as they don't offer that. Don't think we will point that out to them at this stage though!

Is there any benefit to making contributions through payroll? DH is currently self employed and has his own pension so could just continue contributions to that.

Not really, no. The idea is to encourage people to save by giving people very easy access to a scheme and making it as easy as possible for them to do so. If your DH has a scheme already he can continue with that.

Thanks very much for that