You may have seen the advertisements on the TV about auto-enrolment. In summary, everyone in the UK who is not an active, participating member of an occupational pension scheme – and is over 22, under their state retirement age and earns above a certain amount (currently around £8,000 pa) – will be ‘auto-enrolled’ or in other words will automatically become a member of, a ‘qualifying’ scheme.  

In the immediate run-up to 1 November, the company will be writing to all those affected, which will include those who have not joined or have  left the BT Retirement Savings Scheme (BTRSS), those who have taken their BT pension and who continue to work for the company, and those who for whatever reason have either left or never joined the BT Pension Scheme. Letters will also be going to everyone who is currently an active member of the BTPS or the BTRSS to explain that they will not be auto-enrolled, as they’re already in a ‘qualifying’ scheme – in other words, a scheme that meets the standards laid down by UK legislation for auto-enrolment. Those who are eligible to join the BTRSS will be auto-enrolled into that scheme. Those who have taken their BTPS pension and continue to work for BT will be auto-enrolled into NEST – the National Employees’ Savings Trust, which is the government’s own defined contribution scheme.

We will be writing to all members at the same time as BT writes to its employees, simply to explain that the auto-enrolment process has been fully discussed with the union and is a process we broadly support .But since the company is now warming up its communications on this issue – it has published information on the BT Today web site – we are also issuing this brief message.