One in eight employers missed their auto-enrolment staging date in the second quarter of 2016, putting themselves at risk of a fine, according to figures from Aviva.
The provider says 12 per cent of businesses approached it after their staging month had passed in Q2 of 2016, up from just 1 per cent in the previous quarter.
Aviva’s figures show 53 per cent of businesses made their application two months or more before their staging date, while 48 per cent of employers left it to the month before their staging date or later.
In Q2 2016, TPR issued 861 fixed penalty notices – more than a quarter of the total handed out since July 2012.
Aviva MD business solutions Andy Beswick says: “We’ve decided to release these staging numbers on a regular basis to highlight the good, and perhaps not so good, practices which are happening as auto-enrolment encompasses more and more SMEs.
“Business owners have to face up to auto-enrolment and not bury their heads in the sand. I hope that by showing when our own clients are choosing to stage, we can encourage others to act and start planning earlier for their workplace pension obligations.
“We understand that, for a variety of reasons, some business owners will leave applying to the last minute or miss their staging date.
“Planning ahead and getting a scheme set up early can help reduce the stress of working to a deadline and worrying about the consequences of missing the staging date.”