The partner pension conundrum

PA 2008 s 3(2) + ERA 1996 s 43A = AE 4 Ps where: PA = Pensions Act, ERA = Employment Rights Act, AE = automatic enrolment into a pension scheme; and Ps = partners. The catalyst for this article is Bates van Winkelhof v Clyde & Co LLP and another [2014] UKSC 32, [2014] 3 All ER 225. Partnerships as employers must enrol jobholders automatically into pension schemes under the Pensions Act 2008 (PA 2008), s 3(2), but partners themselves might be liable to be enrolled automatically.

A jobholder is a worker, defined in PA 2008, s 88(3) as “an individual who has entered into or works under (a) a contract of employment, or (b) any other contract by which the individual undertakes to do work or perform services personally for another party to the contract”, but by sub-s (4) this does not apply “if the status of the other party is by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of a profession