The Pensions Regulator has started to carry out spot checks on auto-enrolment compliance in Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester became the second area, following London, by which TPR inspection teams visited dozens of businesses to check that qualifying staff are being given the workplace pensions they are entitled to.

The initiative is part of a nationwide enforcement campaign to ensure employers are meeting their workplace pension duties and will assist the Regulator in gaging whether employers are facing challenges that can be helped.

In addition, the checks will also locate employers who have not met requirements to become or remain compliant, and so leading to enforcement action.

Visits will continue in other towns and cities across the UK in the following weeks.

Overall, 300,000 staff have been auto-enrolled from more than 3,100 employers to date in Greater Manchester as a whole. Across the UK, over 500,000 employers have met their auto-enrolment duties, with almost eight million workers given workplace pensions as a result.

TPR acting director of automatic enrolment Darren Ryder, said: "The vast majority of employers become compliant ahead of their deadline but visits help us to identify why some have not, so we can take action where we need to.

"Every employer has workplace pension duties and we are determined that every worker gets the pension they are entitled to. Automatic enrolment is not an option, it’s the law. Where we find employers are not complying with the law, we will use our powers to make them comply."

In the first quarter of 2017, TPR issued a total of 4,673 fixed penalty notices and 1,043 escalating penalty notices.

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