Recent industry reports have predicted that there will be a sharp rise in the number of escalating penalty notices being served by the Pensions Regulator over the next few months.
Escalating penalty notices, which apply daily, are issued to businesses that persistently fail to comply with their auto-enrolment staging date, and they can quickly add up to a significant amount.
They are issued as a way of tackling SMEs, and other firms, that do not comply with their staging dates and pension auto-enrolment rules.
Only four escalating penalty notices were issued in the last quarter; however, because 1,139 firms received a compliance notice, a reporting delay is said to be behind the low figure, and it is expected to rise in the report for the next quarter.
According to a response made to a recent Freedom of Information request, out of the four companies served with escalating penalty notices, one large employer was charged £5,000 per day, two medium-sized businesses were charged £2,500 per day, and one small employer was billed £500 per day.
Large employers are those with 250 or more people in their workforce, medium employers have 50 to 249 employees, and small employers have fewer than 50 people.
Due to the fact that hundreds of thousands of employers are starting to reach their staging dates from now until 2016, experts have predicted that there will be a rush for them to source an experienced auto-enrolment supplier.