On the go: The Pensions Regulator has appointed 91 trustees to ensure the proper administration of pension schemes between January and March, according to new data.
The figures published on Friday also show that the watchdog issued 52 mandatory penalty notices for no or non-compliant chair’s statements. During the same period, TPR used its information-gathering powers 11 times.
On auto-enrolment, the regulator issued 9,913 fixed penalty notices in the first quarter of 2020, down from 11,490 in the previous quarter.
A fixed penalty notice of £400 is issued to an employer for failure to comply with a statutory notice or some specific employer duties.
The regulator also issued 3,571 escalating penalty notices – which varies between £50 and £10,000 a day depending on the size of the company, and is issued if the employer still has not complied – a decrease from 5,218 in the previous period.
Overall, the watchdog used its powers more than 35,000 times during the first three months of 2020, down from 37,990 in the final quarter of 2019.
Mel Charles, TPR’s director of automatic enrolment, said: “The protection of savers is our top priority, and maintaining high employer compliance and driving up governance standards is key to that.
“These figures show the action we have taken to ensure employers and trustees meet their responsibilities. They are also a result of our proportionate and risk-based approach to enforcement, an approach that is now enabling us to respond to the challenges that Covid-19 is bringing to bear on savers and employers alike.”
