The Pensions Regulator has revealed a decline within the variety of penalty notices it issued for breaches of auto-enrolment guidelines.
Regardless of the autumn, the TPR has warned that with over 55,000 notices issued in the newest six month interval vital issues with compliance stay.
The regulator has additionally warned employers to make sure they’re complying with their computerized enrolment duties after current inspections discovered various errors.
The variety of penalty notices issued in the newest six month interval accessible, July to December 2021, was down from 58,203 within the earlier interval to 55,203, a drop of almost 3,000.
The information for the six month interval reveals TPR issued:
- 20,382 compliance notices (in comparison with 20,555 for the earlier interval)
- 13,604 unpaid contribution notices (in comparison with 13,376)
- 15,302 mounted penalty notices (in comparison with 17,284)
- 5,918 escalating penalty notices (in comparison with 6,988)
The whole variety of statutory powers used was 203 in comparison with 244 within the earlier six-month interval.
The Pensions Regulator not too long ago carried out a sequence of in-depth compliance inspections of greater than 20 giant employers throughout the UK, with a complete of almost 1.5 million workers.
There have been various widespread errors in respect of calculating pensions contributions and communications to workers, the TPR mentioned.
The TPR mentioned that whereas the companies it inspected efficiently enrolled eligible workers right into a pension and made contributions, administrative errors with their pensions duties put workers prone to not receiving the pensions they had been due. The companies had been within the transport, hospitality, finance and retail sectors. A quantity are working to appropriate errors, together with making backdated contributions.
TPR’s director of computerized enrolment Mel Charles mentioned: “The overwhelming majority of employers are efficiently assembly their computerized enrolment duties, nevertheless administrative errors can put workers prone to lacking out on their pensions and employers prone to unintended non-compliance.
“Whereas the errors now we have discovered are technical in nature, some of these oversights can point out broader non-compliance points. Correcting these errors may be pricey for employers as a result of in addition to needing to make backdated funds for employees receiving incorrect contributions, they will additionally result in monetary penalty.”
The TPR additionally mentioned it could not hesitate to prosecute the worst offenders. Earlier this 12 months the TPR prosecuted a pair of fraudsters who had been a part of a prison scheme that tricked greater than 200 savers into transferring their pension pots into fraudulent schemes.
Alan Barratt, 62, of Burnham Street, Althorne, Essex and Susan Dalton, 66, of Brookdale, Rochdale, Lancashire had been sentenced at Southwark Crown Court docket in April after admitting costs of fraud by abuse of place arising from their roles as trustees of pension schemes.
Mr Barratt obtained a sentence of 5 years and 7 months whereas Ms Dalton was sentenced to 4 years and eight months in jail. The pair had been additionally banned from appearing as firm administrators for eight years following a request by TPR. Proceeds of Crime restoration of cash taken within the fraud is underneath method.