Set up pension for nanny – or face £400 f ine

FAMILIES who employ a part-time gardener, nanny or carer face fines of hundreds of pounds unless they sign up to a government workplace pension scheme.

By law, anyone who takes on such assistants will have to contribute to a pension if they pay their employee more than £10,000 a year.

But yesterday it emerged that even people employed only occasionally – and paid less than the threshold – must also be registered by their employer within the next two years.

While the plans have been welcomed by childcare groups, they could mean hours of extra admini stration work f or ordinary families.

The Department for Work and Pensions said the rules ensure all eligible employees are included.

The Government is running an advertising campaign on billboards, buses and prime-time TV to publicise the law this week. It features a 10ft cartoon character called ‘Workie’ that pensions minister Baroness Altmann helped design.

Anyone who would be considered an employer by the taxman must register on a new Government website to prove they are compliant with pension l aw. Those who do not will first receive an official warning, then a fixed penalty of £400. For every day they fail to register, the smallest employers will face fines of £50.

The ‘ automatic enrolment’ scheme began three years ago. Now the smallest employers are being obliged to comply. Between April next year and March 2017, 714,000 ‘ micro- employers’ will have to set up plans for staff or, if they pay them less than £10,000 a year, register with the pensions website.

Baroness Altmann said at the weekend the programme was aimed at helping employers do right by their staff.

She told a Sunday newspaper: ‘If you want to be a decent, good employer, the normal thing should be to provide a pension. We want to get into the psyche of “teeny” employers and their staff to say this is coming, but it’s not something you should push away. The message is that the workplace pension is good for you.

‘There are a lot of people who will need to register that they are employers, but then also register to say you don’t have anyone to auto-enrol.

‘If they don’t, the regulator will come after them. They will be considered not to have fulfilled their duties and face penalties.’

Baroness Altmann said officials were working hard to ‘simplify the processes’ for employers.

She added: ‘Fines are a last resort.’