TPR Shames Trustees Who Shirk Duties

The UK’s The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has begun outing trustees of high-profile employers who have failed to comply with their basic duties.

TPR last month announced that it would take the new approach of naming employers who have received escalating penalty notices (EPN) for automatic enrollment failures, and country court judgments (CCJ) for failing to pay their fines. And the regulator has started to name names. As well as including data on automatic enrollment compliance in its compliance and enforcement bulletin, TPR now includes a link to the names of pension plans whose trustees have been fined for failing to complete scheme returns or annual chair’s statements.

TPR said it is a basic governance activity, as well as a legal requirement, for a trustee to complete a chair’s statement and plan return, and it fines those who don’t fulfill their responsibilities.

“It is concerning that the trustees of some schemes, including those of some high-profile organizations, are failing to complete some of their most basic legal pension duties,” said Nicola Parish, TPR’s executive director for frontline regulation, in a statement. “We expect trustees to comply with their basic duties, including providing information in the scheme return on time.”

According to TRP, section 89 of the Pensions Act 2004 allows the regulator to publish information on cases where it has exercised or considered exercising its powers.

“Our ability to publish information–including details of our enforcement cases–plays an important part in enabling our commitment to transparency, and increases awareness and understanding of our decisions and actions,” said TPR.

Other new data in the compliance and enforcement bulletin include:

• A total of 276 inspections were carried out during the quarter, up from 224 in the previous quarter, which is the most completed in a single quarter.

• TPR issued nearly 4,794 fixed penalty notices (FPN) of £400 for automatic enrollment non-compliance to employers in the quarter, up from 4,673 the previous quarter, which is the largest total issued to date.

• A total of 1,384 EPNs were issued in the quarter, up from 1,043 in the first three months of 2017, which was also the highest number of EPNs issued in a quarter.

TPR has also published a list, updated quarterly, of employers taken to court for failing to pay fines for automatic enrolment non-compliance. The employers had each been issued with an escalating penalty notice (EPN) by TPR but had failed to pay it.The list features both small and multinational companies, with county court judgments secured by TPR for up to £52,500.

The regulator said that the vast majority of employers are compliant with their workplace pension duties. However, TPR’s website now also features an updated list of a small number of employers who continue to ignore their automatic enrollment responsibilities despite having been issued with, paid, escalating-penalty notices.

“We want all members to be saving in well-run schemes and will take action to help schemes get the basics right,” said Parish. “Size doesn’t matter–if you breach your duties, you will face action.”