An Employer Reference Number (ERN) is more commonly known as the Employer PAYE Reference and is a reference number assigned to a business and used by HMRC to record employees’ tax and national insurance contributions.
There’s been some concern around the fact that the ELTO are using a policyholder’s ERN to identify them within the EL database.
Some worry that this information will be used to cross-reference information with HMRC, or with other governmental bodies. This is the not the case, however.
The FSA chose to use the ERN because it is a unique reference associated with each UK Company; in simple terms, ERNs are to companies what number plates are to road vehicles.
The advantages of using the ERN are:
- Nearly all UK companies with one or more employees has an ERN
- Each ERN is completely unique
- The ERN never changes retrospectively
- The ERN is printed on large amount of documentation that the claimant should have access to, such as payslips, P45s and P60s.
You must make sure that all information submitted contains the policyholder’s ERN. Some larger clients may have several ERNs - all of these should be submitted to RSA.
If you do have any concerns:
