Section 4 — Pensions Act 2008: Postponement or disapplication of automatic enrolment

Postponement or disapplication of automatic enrolment 4 1 Where—

a an employer (E) gives to a person employed by E on E's staging date (“the worker”) notice that E intends to defer automatic enrolment for the worker until a date specified in the notice (“the deferral date”),

and b any prescribed requirements in relation to the notice are met, the worker's automatic enrolment date is the deferral date if on that date section 3 applies to the worker as a jobholder of E; if not, subsection (4) applies.

2 Where—

a a person (“the worker”) begins to be employed by an employer (E) after E's staging date, b E gives the worker notice that E intends to defer automatic enrolment until a date specified in the notice (“the deferral date”),

and c any prescribed requirements in relation to the notice are met, the worker's automatic enrolment date is the deferral date if on that date section 3 applies to the worker as a jobholder of E; if not, subsection (4) applies.

3 Where—

a a person (“the worker”) employed by an employer (E) becomes, after E's staging date, a jobholder to whom section 3 applies, b E gives the worker notice that E intends to defer automatic enrolment until a date specified in the notice (“the deferral date”),

and c any prescribed requirements in relation to the notice are met, the worker's automatic enrolment date is the deferral date if on that date section 3 applies to the worker as a jobholder of E; if not, subsection (4) applies.

4 Where this subsection applies, section 3(2) does not apply in relation to any employment of the worker by E in the period beginning with the starting day and ending with the deferral date.

5 A notice under this section may be given on or before the starting day or within a prescribed period after that day.

6 The deferral date may be any date in the period of three months after the starting day.

7 An employer who gives a worker a notice under subsection (1) or (2) may not give the worker a notice under subsection (3) in relation to any occasion on or before the deferral date specified in the notice on which the worker becomes a jobholder to whom section 3 applies.

8 In this section— “ staging date ”, in relation to an employer of a particular description, means the date prescribed under section 12 in relation to employers of that description; “ starting day ” means— E's staging date, in the case of a notice under subsection (1); the day on which the worker begins to be employed by E, in the case of a notice under subsection (2); the day on which the worker becomes a jobholder to whom section 3 applies, in the case of a notice under subsection (3).