A new wave of spot checks on companies suspected of passing false or misleading information to The Pensions Regulator about compliance with automatic enrolment requirements has been announced.
The latest round of inspections will begin towards the end of this month and will focus on firms that have been identified by the regulator as not complying with the auto-enrolment requirement.
In some cases these employers will have already received substantial and often escalating fines.
Darren Ryder, director of automatic enrolment at The Pensions Regulator, said: “It is an offence for employers to provide The Pensions Regulator with false information on their declaration of compliance, but there are tell-tale signs indicating an employer might not be telling the truth.
“The vast majority of employers are meeting their responsibilities and automatic enrolment is now business as usual. But where employers fail to comply with the law, we will use our full range of our powers to ensure staff get the pensions they are due.”
Employers who have failed to comply have seen subject to hefty penalties.
In one recent case Birmingham-based Crest Healthcare was fined £20,000 after the firm's managing director pleaded guilty to knowingly or recklessly providing false or misleading information and wilfully failing to comply with the regulator’s requirements.
Tom McPhail, head of retirement policy at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The Pensions Regulator has a huge responsibility to ensure employers conduct business in line with their legal responsibilities.
"Spot checks are a useful and effective way to focus employers’ minds and to encourage them to understand that they are taking real risks if they don’t comply."
dan.moore@ft.com
