Pension Auto-Enrolment Fines Rise by 144%

Is your auto-enrolment process efficient? According to statistics from The Pensions Regulator, there has been an increase in fines made to businesses whose auto-enrolment applications are not compliant with regulations.

The statistics, which show that fines for automatic enrolment errors have jumped to £42m in the last financial year compared to £12.6 in 2016/17, are startling, to say the least. Why are so many businesses getting it wrong?

Since auto-enrolment was rolled out to include smaller businesses, many organisations who do not have enough resources to deal with the complexity of the auto-enrolment scheme may have made errors when dealing with the requirements of it.

Where larger businesses will often have a department or individual dedicated to pensions, smaller businesses may have neither the time to efficiently deal with the scheme nor the budget to employ extra staff or hire an external service to manage the scheme for them. This might put smaller businesses at risk of making errors when signing their employees up to their scheme.

Regulations for auto-enrolment schemes can be quite complex, which can result in issues with compliance or record-keeping that could have gone unnoticed for some time. These issues stack up, resulting in larger fines as time goes on.

It's also important to note that businesses need to provide regular data updates on employees to The Pensions Regulator. Providing these regular updates is a requirement for employers and not doing so can also result in a fine.

Smaller businesses may find it more cost-effective to have an audit performed on their in-house auto-enrolment procedures, which can help to ensure full compliance with the regulations. This could assist businesses in managing their scheme more efficiently, mitigating potential errors that could arise in the process.

Bravo Benefits have significant experience in pensions and auto-enrolment and are able to perform an audit for your business, assessing your auto-enrolment process at every step to ensure contributions are being recorded accurately and that procedures are compliant. We can also assess whether you're getting value for money from your current provider, performing an audit on the services that they are offering to you.

For smaller businesses, fines can have a huge impact. That is why it's so vital to ensure your procedures are compliant. Bravo Benefits can pinpoint errors you may not have noticed, and potentially save your business money in the long run. You may find that our audit streamlines your entire process and saves your business time, too!

To find out more about how we can help you with your auto-enrolment procedure, please contact us. Email the team on information@bravobenefits.co.uk or call us on 0330 333 9100.