AS more and more employers face renewal of their pension scheme certification, a Worcestershire workplace pensions and benefits specialist has launched a jargon busting guide, intended to support employers through this complex but crucially important part of the auto-enrolment process.

Johnson Fleming, which is based on Bromsgrove, is warning that time is running out for a growing number of employers, who face sanctions from the Pensions Regulator if they do not get to grips with complicated auto-enrolment certification regulations. Aimed at HR professionals, the guide entitled "How to certify your pension scheme", cuts through the minefield of information surrounding certification.

Iain Chadwick, consultancy director at Johnson Fleming, said: "Certifying your workplace pension scheme is undoubtedly one of the hardest areas to get right. Even establishing whether or not a pension scheme actually needs to be certified can prove difficult, but in a nutshell, if your definition of pensionable salary is different to that of qualifying earnings, you must certify unless you have chosen to perform an entitlement check. Also, if anything in your organisation that could affect your scheme has changed, certification is a must.

“It is an employer’s obligation to ensure that its pension scheme meets the required standards, and action by the Pensions Regulator will follow for any company that falls short. This is already happening, as the leap in compliance notices shows, but we believe that this is not down to a lack of effort by employers, more a gap in understanding and a lack of available advice. Our guide is intended to simplify the whole process, and provide a much clearer understanding of what an employer’s next steps should be.”

The guide covers issues such as: who needs to do it, when to renew your certificate; what happens if your certificate falls short and what renewing your certificate means for your business. Between now and 2017 the largest tranche of UK businesses, approximately 598,000 will reach their auto-enrolment staging dates. As more and more employers stage, the number of firms entering the second phase of auto-enrolment and needing to renew their certificate will also increase.