With an ageing population in the UK, it is more important than ever to prepare for the future by investing in an additional income for your retirement on top of the state pension scheme.

Our role at NES is to provide you with that opportunity under the government’s workplace pensions guidance.

You may or may not be aware that in October 2013 the NES conducted its first staging process whereby all eligible staff were automatically enrolled into the NHS Scotland Pension Scheme.  It is a legal requirement that we repeat this process every three years which brings us to our latest automatic re-enrolment date of 1^st October 2016.

In order to meet the eligibility criteria for automatic re-enrolment, you must fall into the following categories;

• Are not already in a workplace pension scheme
• Earn over £10,000 a year (£833 a month or £192 per week)
• Are aged 22 or over
• Are under State Pension age

If it is more than 12 months since you previously opted out of the Scheme, you will automatically be re-enrolled in this year’s process. If, however, you have opted out in the last 12 months you will not be enrolled again until the next 2019.

If you meet the above criteria, on 1^st of October 2016 you will be automatically enrolled into the NHS Pension Scheme.

If you meet the criteria but are ineligible to join the NHS Pension Scheme for additional reasons such as; you are a re-employed 1995 Scheme pensioner or have reached the maximum pensionable scheme service, you will be automatically re-enrolled into the National Employment Savings Trust Pension Scheme (NEST).

Please read the guidance from SPPA on opting out the scheme.

By law we must ensure that we continue to provide all eligible employees with membership of a workplace pension that meets government standards. It is a requirement that we re-enrol eligible employees who have opted out every three years.