One in six businesses is signing up to an auto-enrolment scheme after the deadline has passed, according to Aviva.
In a survey of its own customers, Aviva found 16 per cent of businesses that signed up to its auto-enrolment products in the first quarter of 2017 did so after their staging date had passed.
That was up from 14 per cent in the previous quarter.
The proportion of companies making AE provisions more than two months in advance was just 25 per cent, its lowest level since the new regime came in more than four years ago.
That was down from 40 per cent in the second quarter of 2016.
Currently, the UK's smallest businesses are entering the AE regime, and they have proved the least prepared to comply with their new duties.
Andy Beswick, managing director of business solutions at Aviva, said the numbers were disappointing but "not unexpected".
"SME’s tend to be less well resourced and aren’t blessed with large HR departments or budgets to help them through their auto-enrolment journey," he said.
“What the figures do highlight is that there is still work to be done to make business owners aware of their obligations.
"As an industry, we’ve been talking about auto-enrolment since the early 2000s and implementing it for over four years now. But to thousands of employers and employees, it is still a brand new concept and we need to make sure people aren’t getting left behind."
Aviva's figures are in line with those of The Pensions Regulator, which has reported a marked increase in the number of businesses failing to comply with the new rules.
They are also in line with Now: Pensions' figures from January, which found one in five companies were missing their staging date.
In order to combat this rise in non-compliance, the regulator last month announced it would be conducting spot checks on businesses to make sure they were complying with their obligations.
TPR's executive director of auto-enrolment Charles Counsell said it was "not fair to staff if they do not get the pensions contributions they are entitled to by law".
"We take non-compliance seriously and will take enforcement action when we need to," he said.
“As well as investigating any non-compliance, these inspections will also help shine a light on employer behaviour so we can see why different types of employers fail and also identify good practice that others can learn from."
The government is currently reviewing the successes and failures of the auto-enrolment regime to date.
james.fernyhough@ft.com
