SMEs should take TPR’s actions seriously

Businesses of ever-decreasing sizes are getting formal notification of their auto-enrolment duties: but are they listening to the message?

Hundreds of thousands of small employers across the UK will have started receiving letters from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) telling them of their automatic enrolment duties as an employer. Yet, when I attend and give presentations on the theme of automatic enrolment, I am constantly surprised by the large numbers of blank faces in the room, when I ask them if they know when their staging date is.

However, on a more positive note, I am encouraged to read that the impact of the General Election has not affected the work of TPR – recent articles have highlighted that the organisation has been continuing to step up its enforcement activities when it comes to the automatic enrolment legislation.

During the first quarter of this year (1 January – 31 March 2015), TPR issued four escalating penalty notices. Small businesses – soon to confront their automatic enrolment duties – need to take TPR’s actions seriously, because it is fully intends to enforce this legislation and to ensure that businesses enrol their staff into workplace pensions. And because of this, businesses can not afford to bury their heads in the sand.

Research  we reported on in March 2015 highlighted (encouragingly) that 97% of those businesses we questioned stated that they intend to comply with the legislation. Whilst only 3% advise they won’t comply. However, whilst this seems a relatively low figure, it equates to around 45,000 small businesses in total; that’s still a pretty high proportion of the SME community.

Click here to read the full article on Growth Business website.