Commentary on Sections Part 1: Pension scheme membership for jobholders Chapter 1: Employers’ duties Section 20: Quality requirement: UK money purchase schemes
61.In order to be deemed a qualifying scheme a UK occupational money purchase scheme must require an employer contribution equivalent to at least 3% of qualifying earnings and total contributions paid by the employer and jobholder equivalent to at least 8% (including tax relief).
62.The PA 2007 contains repeals of the contracting out arrangements for money purchase schemes currently provided for under the PSA 1993. However, in the event that those repeals have not yet been brought into force when the employer duties commence, subsection (2) enables regulations to be made to modify the contributions required for money purchase schemes with members whose employment is contracted-out of the State Second Pension Scheme.
63.Subsection (3) contains a regulation-making power that allows the Secretary of State to set an amount below which trustees and employers could choose to decline to accept contributions. This could be used, for example, to enable schemes to not have to deal with such minor amounts of contributions which are uneconomic to administer.