Enforcement powers are continuing to be used by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to safeguard pension members’ benefits.
The latest quarterly compliance and enforcement bulletin highlights a case of a global company that has agreed to pay £3 million into its defined benefit pension scheme, after the regulator opened an anti-avoidance investigation due to concerns that members’ pensions were being put at risk.
TPR’s Executive Director of Frontline Regulation, Nicola Parish, said: “We are working to be a clearer, quicker and tougher regulator. Very often, being clear that we are fully prepared to use our powers gets employers and trustees to the table and means members are safeguarded more quickly.
“Several cases are resolved thanks to clear and robust negotiation by our case teams and the early engagement of companies and trustees,” she added.
Due to the high volume of employers who reached their auto-enrolment staging date last autumn, the number of times TPR used its powers in this quarter made up 20 per cent of all the powers used since the start of automatic enrolment. In total, it used its enforcement powers 35,862 times between January and March 2018.
The latest bulletin revealed that compared with last quarter, this quarter TPR issued 3,721 more fixed penalty notices, 2,037 more compliance notices and 431 more unpaid contribution notices.
TPR’s Director of Automatic Enrolment, Darren Ryder, said: “Huge numbers of employers are starting their workplace pensions duties every month and the vast majority are successfully meeting their duties. However, where an employer fails to do the right thing for their staff, we will take action using the wide range of powers available to us.”
