Auto-enrolment clarification for companies with directors only

Hundreds of thousands of small companies will start to received notification letters from the Pensions Regulator over the next year notifying them of the date they need to start auto-enrolment of all staff on to a workplace pension, this date is called the staging date. There has been some confusion over whether companies who only have directors on the payroll, which is very common in the case of small companies, will need to auto-enrol. The Pension Regulator has now issued guidance on this issue which can be accessed here, essentially it has said if the only staff are directors and none have employment contracts, which would be the case in most small companies, then it is possible to opt out by email.