Their goal is to ensure that employers understand their duties and are in a position to carry them out with our help and guidance. The responsibility for complying will rest with the employer.
From The Pensions Regulator website:
The compliance and enforcement policy explains the various options available to us to maximise employer compliance. The employer’s duties guide summarises the strategy and outlines our regulatory approach and legal powers. Our aims and objectives The underlying aim of this strategy is to have in place effective systems to maximise employers' compliance with their duties under the Pensions Act 2008 and to ensure non- compliance is held at an absolute minimum, to safeguard workers ability to save in a pension scheme. The objectives of the strategy are to: establish and maintain a 'pro-compliance' culture among employers so that they are aware of and understand their obligations, want to comply with their legal duties and advocate that non-compliance by other employers is not acceptable maximise deterrence for those who are considering committing a breach by communicating swiftly detect non-compliance by putting in place effective systems to facilitate whistleblowing, registration verification, the analysis of information and the sharing of intelligence with other agencies Compliance approach Our overall compliance approach is focussed on educating and enabling employers to comply with their duties. We are taking steps to prompt you into action to prepare for auto enrolment and reduce the risk of non-compliance which include: writing to you to notify you of your staging date at 12 months and three months in advance of your staging date helping the pensions industry provide products and advice that is fit for purpose and supports the aims of automatic enrolment helping employers understand what questions they should ask of their pension advisers and product providers making educational products available, like our detailed guidance for large businesses and advisers, and our interactive tools to help smaller employers providing a customer contact centre to provide information and guidance making the process of registration simple for employers to minimise the administrative burden Failure to comply There are some employers who will fail to comply because they have not understood or have not been able to comply. We will consider the circumstances of each case and, where it is appropriate to do so, we will work with them to get them compliant.
Inevitably, there will be a small number of employees who may have chosen to ignore their responsibilities. We will be tough but fair to non-compliant employers.
We will: use high-quality intelligence to detect employers who are non-compliant be risk-based and proportionate by taking timely and appropriate regulatory action where necessary to get them back on track intervene where we will have the greatest impact and deploy our resources efficiently ensure sanctions are used fairly and effectively consider all the relevant circumstances of each case, and ensure that there is a fair review and appeal process
CIPP Policy News Journal
12/04/2013, Page 237 of 362
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