The Pensions Regulator (TPR) took enforcement action against almost 2,000 firms a week for not complying with their workplace pension duties in the year to 31 March, according to research from law firm Clyde & Co.
The regulator took 102,000 enforcement actions in the year, more than twice as many as in the previous year, when 50,000 such notices were issued.
There are four enforcement actions available to TPR: compliance notices, fixed penalty notices, escalating penalty notices and unpaid contribution notices. The usage of all has more than doubled over the last year.
Enforcement activity in 2017/18 accounts for 63 per cent of all enforcement action taken over the past five years by the regulator.
The total of fines issued by the regulator was almost three times higher than in the year before, at £11.5m, compared with £4.9m the previous year.
There was also a 35 per cent increase in the number of whistleblower complaints received during the year, figures supplied to the law firm by the regulator showed.
Since 2012, employers have been required to enrol eligible employees into a workplace pension.
Firms which do not comply with these rules face fines of up to £10,000 per day, depending on the size of the firm.
Mark Howard, head of pensions at Clyde & Co, said: "Six years on since the introduction of automatic enrolment, the regulator is bearing its teeth and employers are now feeling the full force of its enforcement powers.
"The biggest concern for all employers should be the rate at which enforcement activity is increasing.
"In the last six months of 2017/18 the regulator handed out £7.4m in fixed penalty notices, compared to £4.9m for the whole of the previous year (2016/17), so alarm bells should certainly be ringing."
In May, Crest Healthcare was prosecuted and fined more than £20,000 after being found guilty of not complying with auto-enrolment duties, and of providing false information to TPR about a workplace pension scheme.
In August, in the first case of its type for a third party working on behalf of an employer, TPR announced it is prosecuting an accountant after he allegedly falsely claimed that a London-based restaurant, run by Primadell, had enrolled its staff into a workplace pension scheme.
david.thorpe@ft.com
