As an employer, you can contribute into your worker's personal pension instead of contributing into the company's workplace pension if you decide to do so. However, you have no legal obligation to pay employer contributions into a SIPP unless this is explicitly included as a change to the employment agreement (e.g. a side letter).
The simplest way for an employer to contribute into the SIPP is usually to set up a Direct Debit, but not all SIPPs might provide this option. It’s also worth being aware that some SIPP providers might not be able to deal with contributions varying (if the total salary varies).
See below the steps to follow if both employee and employer contributions want to be contributed to the worker’s personal pension scheme instead of the company’s Auto Enrolment one.
1. First of all, the worker needs to opt-out from the company's AE scheme.
2. The worker can then be moved to their own SIPP in Husky (You need to let Husky know the SIPP details and if the earnings basis and contribution levels are the same as the existing AE scheme).
3. On a monthly basis, payroll will enter the salary and pension contributions into Husky as they do for any other employees. Those contributions will not be taken from the AE scheme as Husky will exclude this worker from the monthly upload into the pension provider.
4. Instead, it's the employer's responsibility to manage those payments to the SIPP provider directly.
5. During re-enrolment, the worker will need to be enrolled again into the company's AE scheme (Husky manages that process) and opt-out again.
