The TPR Blog also published this week, reminds us that whilst we have come a long way in making workplace pensions and automatic enrolment ‘business as usual’, there is much more yet to be done
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Accounts manager ordered to pay £5,000 for workplace pension lies 11 February 2019
An accounts manager who tried to hide the fact that restaurants had not given their staff workplace pensions has been ordered to pay £5,000.
Bradford-based Mansoor Nasir submitted false declarations of workplace pension compliance to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to claim that nine restaurants were giving their employees the correct benefits.
When TPR investigated it found that Nasir had failed to automatically enrol 103 staff into workplace pensions at the restaurants for which he was the payroll adviser in Birmingham, Manchester, Yorkshire and the North East. He tried to cover this up using false declarations between September 2014 and May 2017. Nasir pleaded guilty to nine charges of knowingly or recklessly providing TPR with information which was false or misleading, contrary to section 80 of the Pensions Act 2004, when he appeared at Brighton Magistrates’ Court on 9 January. Sentencing Nasir at the same court on 6 February, District Judge Teresa Szagun told the qualified accountant that his actions had been “deliberate” .
Knowingly or recklessly providing false information to TPR is an offence under section 80 of the Pensions Act 2004. It carries a maximum sentence in a magistrates’ court of an unlimited fine.
Judge Szagun ordered Nasir, who is based at Beaumont Management Services in Duncombe Road, Bradford, to pay a £3,320 fine, £1,560 costs and a £120 victim surcharge.
Darren Ryder, TPR’s Director of Automatic Enrolment, said:
“Nasir claimed he didn’t know what he needed to do to put the staff into their workplace pensions but instead of asking us for help he put his head in the sand.
There is guidance on our website and we also have people on hand to offer employers and advisers help on how to comply with their automatic enrolment duties.
Nasir’s lies to us have now left him with an entirely avoidable bill and a criminal record."
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11% of employers do not inform employees of pension contribution increases 28 March 2019
A CIPP poll has revealed that although employers use a number of different methods to communicate phased increases to automatic enrolment pension contributions, 11% of respondents do not communicate the changes at all.
We provided a number of options to our poll question, “How do you inform your employees of phased increases to automatic enrolment pension contributions?” Of the 327 responses we received, the majority (46%) send a personal letter to their employees to inform them of the increases. 12% use a company newsletter and an equal number (7%)
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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