Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 section 52

Standards for purposes of section 51

Section 52 requires the Authority, in consultation with the Pensions Authority, to draw up qualifying standards for the pension arrangements that can give rise to exempt employment under section 51.

• The Authority must draw up standards for four categories of pension arrangement: occupational pension schemes, PRSAs, trust RACs, and PEPPs. These standards must relate to employer and employee contribution levels and any other matters considered appropriate.
• The standards must be at least as favourable as those applying to employees who are auto-enrolment participants, ensuring that workers in qualifying schemes are not disadvantaged compared to those in the automatic enrolment system.
• The Authority must keep the standards under review and may revise them from time to time. The Minister may then make regulations formally setting out the standards and prescribing the date from which they take effect for the purposes of section 51.
• The first set of standards for each of the four categories must be in place and apply no later than the beginning of years 7 to 9 of the automatic enrolment system's operation.