The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is carrying out spot checks in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Kent to ensure employers are complying with their auto-enrolment duties.
According to the watchdog, inspection teams will visit more than 200 businesses from Southampton in the west to Ashford in the east in the weeks before Christmas.
Even though this is the first time the regulator is conducting these checks in these counties, this is part of a nationwide enforcement campaign which began in London in April.
The spot checks have also occurred in Glasgow and South Wales recently, and previously in Greater Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham.
The checks will help the regulator understand whether employers are facing any unnecessary challenges that it can help them with, such as improving their systems.
However, these checks will also highlight employers who have not taken the required steps to become or remain compliant with auto-enrolment, paving the way for enforcement action.
According to numbers published last week, The Pensions Regulator used its powers nearly 22,000 times against employers breaching their auto-enrolment duties between July and September.
The number of fixed penalty notices and escalating penalty notices both reached new records, increasing by 14.2 per cent to 5,479 and by 3.5 per cent to 1,433 respectively, when compared with the previous quarter.
According to Darren Ryder, The Pensions Regulator’s director of automatic enrolment, “employers may have one eye on Christmas but it’s important that they don’t take their other eye off the ball when it comes to their employees’ pensions”.
He said: “The vast majority of employers are continuing to provide their staff with the workplace pensions they are entitled to and are keeping up with contributions after that point.
“These visits help us to identify why some are not, so we can take action where we need to.”
More than 850,000 employers across the UK have met their automatic enrolment duties, with more than 8.8 million workers provided with workplace pensions as a result, the TPR said.
Nathan Long, senior pensions analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that the regulator's “continuing attention to ensuring employers are putting their eligible staff into pensions and paying the right money in is crucial to the future success of auto-enrolment”.
He said: “Whilst the industry is focused on building on the success of auto-enrolment, with the ongoing review due to be published next month, the regulator is ensuring the foundations are solid.”
maria.espadinha@ft.com
