He told delegates the regulator would insist any issues identified during an audit be rectified and reminded them it had the power to impose fines of up to £10,000 a day for larger companies and £5,000 a day for smaller employers.
If "deliberate and persistent non-compliance" was discovered, he said TPR would pursue a prosecution.
But Esselmont added: "In terms of the larger volumes, we have an outsourcing partner, with many more people than we do and it will be very much a ‘handle-turning' process for handling compliance at the smaller end."
He said the regulator would produce guidance in the coming months aimed specifically at helping small and medium-sized companies comply with auto-enrolment legislation.
Esselmont said: " We will be supplementing the planning tool we have on our website with guidance that falls between that and the really detailed guides that we wouldn't really expect medium and small employers to ever look at except possibly as a reference."
TPR PUBLISH A QUICK GUIDE TO PAYING CONTRIBUTIONS
18 June 2013
The Pensions Regulator has published a short information guide for employers on the subject of making payments to personal pension schemes and defined contribution occupational pension schemes. The guide does not cover the employer duties including automatic enrolment contained in the Pensions Act 2008 and aims to remind employers of the important responsibility for paying the correct level of contributions in to their pension schemes at that correct time.
GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR EVIDENCE ON PENSION SCHEME QUALITY
4 July 2013
With up to 11 million people being enrolled into a workplace pension scheme – many for the first time – the Minister for Pensions has today (4 July 2013) published a call for evidence on how work-based schemes are managed, with a view to setting out standards to protect members. Looking at the quality of defined contribution (DC) pension schemes, the government has asked the industry for evidence on the current state of pension scheme governance, default options, administration and record-keeping, and scale of schemes.
Minister for Pensions Steve Webb said:
“When people choose to pay into a workplace pension few will have actively chosen the scheme they join. They trust the people managing their pension to be doing everything they can to ensure they receive a decent return when they retire. While we know standards in DC schemes have been improving, we want to make sure all pension providers have key quality standards in place to protect their members.”
Responses to the call for evidence will inform the development of a set of minimum legislative standards. The government is seeking views on:
ways to ensure that people running pensions schemes have the skills and knowledge to be able to act in members’ interests and for conflicts of interest to be properly managed
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 429 of 519
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