The Tiny Hearts Day Nursery, and its director, Christine Moore are facing prosecution for non-compliance with automatic-enrolment legislation in a crackdown to punish any businesses knowingly shirking their responsibilities in this area. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) published a press release on the subject, which serves as a stark warning to companies who do not proceed in line with measures set out in the Pensions Act 2008. The accused have been summoned to Brighton Magistrates Court on 13 November for the false declaration that they had enrolled 13 staff into a pension scheme. This is deemed as knowingly providing false information to TPR which is classified as an offence. TPR has recently confirmed that it will be focusing more on poor record-keeping and on non-compliance from businesses in relation to pension schemes. The prosecution of the nursery and its director reiterate the sentiment that there will be harsher punishments for employers who ‘do not take their pension responsibilities seriously’, as stated in the introduction of the Pensions Bill that was presented in the Queen’s Speech.
The maximum sentence attached to the charge is two years’ imprisonment and a potential unlimited fine.
CIPP Training Courses
The CIPP offers a one-day training course, Automatic-enrolment and pensions for payroll, that informs attendees of the employer duties surrounding automatic-enrolment to avoid scenarios that arise from non-compliance. The next course is to be held on 6 November 2019 and will be located in Glasgow.
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The Pension Regulator’s latest figures show an increase in the number of auto-enrolled workers in November 18 December 2019 In its most recent Automatic enrolment declaration of compliance report, The Pension Regulator (TPR) showed how the number of workers being auto-enrolled into workplace pension schemes had climbed steadily. 17,000 more workers were auto-enrolled in the month of November, bringing the tally to 10.203 million enrolled workers.
This follows several increases observed in recent months, with 16,000 newly enrolled workers reported in September and a further 21,000 added in October.
Despite this positive news, there are still actually more individuals not being enrolled into pension schemes than those who are being enrolled. November saw an extra 30,000 non-enrolled workers against the 17,000 who were enrolled, and this was a further increase on the 28,000 not enrolled in the preceding month of October. If the trend continues, the number of non-enrolled workers will be close to the ten million mark at the end of 2020 as 9.58 million staff members are not currently registered as being in a workplace pension scheme. The TPR states: “While the information is the actual data received by us, there will be employers that have reached their staging date, who have automatically enrolled their eligible jobholders and who have not yet completed their declaration.
The figure for eligible jobholders that have been automatically enrolled is therefore likely to be higher than that shown in this report.”
The Pensions Bill as proposed by the Conservatives was recently shelved due to the call for a general election but will be revisited now that the party has been re-elected. The Bill, first mentioned in the original Queen’s speech and referred to in the Conservative manifesto, proposes that TPR will have greater powers to tackle irresponsible employers and to protect savers. This will ensure greater compliance across the board with auto-enrolment legislation and may prompt a surge in the number of employees who are reported as being auto-enrolled.
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The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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