Pensions for Personal Assistants

If you’ve had any previous jobs before becoming a Personal Assistant (PA) you may already be enrolled into one or more pension schemes.

As a PA, you may be eligible to be enrolled in a workplace pension through your employer.

Workplace pensions

All employers who employ at least one member of staff are legally obliged to enrol any eligible staff into a workplace pension and make contributions to it. This includes PA Employers.

If you are eligible to be enrolled in a workplace pension, you can choose to opt out if you don’t want to be automatically enrolled.

In a workplace pension, you pay some of your wages towards your pension, your employer makes contributions, and the Government makes contributions too.

Am I eligible for a workplace pension as a PA?

You will be eligible for automatic enrolment in a workplace pension if, on your start date, you:

• are aged between 22 and state pension age, and
• are working under a contract of employment and
• earn more than £10,000 a year.

On the first day you start work, your Employer should formally assess you to see if you meet the criteria to be put into a pension scheme.

How PA Employers set up pensions

Many PA Employers will use a payroll service to manage PA wages, so they will ask the payroll service to set up the pension arrangements for their PAs. Some Employers choose to manage pension arrangements on their own.

If you have any questions about your pension, speak to your Employer in the first instance.

There is an article in this Handbook for PA Employers on setting up pensions – you may wish to show them this information if you think you are eligible for a workplace pension and they have not told you about this.

If your employer has not been making the contributions to your pension that you think they should have, you can find helpful information about what to do in the Resource below, ‘Workplace pensions – unpaid pension contributions’.

Next steps

Take a look at the Resources below for more information.