The Pensions Regulator has set out how it plans to maximise employer compliance with auto-enrolment, with an approach that mixes providing advice with putting systems to ensure employers meet their duties.
Delivering successful automatic enrolment, published today, also sets out how the regulator plans to support the pensions industry to deliver defined contribution schemes with the characteristics necessary for good outcomes.
It aims to ensure compliance with auto-enrolment is as high as possible after its introduction begins in October 2012 and to ensure workplace pension schemes are 'safe, durable and value for money' schemes.
In particular, it will provide employers, intermediaries and advisers with the information, tools and support they need to get to grips with the new duties. It will also establish a 'pro-compliance culture' so that employers understand how the law is being applied and that persistent or wilful non-compliance will result in a fine.
And, it will put systems in place to detect and tackle instances of non-compliance.
Chief executive Bill Galvin said the Pensions Regulator was committed to increasing both confidence and participation in workplace pensions, with up to eight million workers expected to be either newly saving or saving more under the law.
'Our approach will be to provide high-quality information and support so that employers know what they need to do to fulfil their new duties, and take action at the right time,' he said.
'The vast majority of members will be automatically enrolled into DC schemes. We will take a targeted approach to risks within the different segments of the DC landscape - and work with the pensions sector to encourage the design and delivery of products that place the interests of members at their heart.'
The document also explains how the regulator will work with the pensions sector with the aim that members are automatically enrolled into pension products that are well-governed, durable and offer value for money.
This involves encouraging the market to deliver schemes that encompass the regulator's principles for good design and governance of DC schemes, and taking a 'segmented' approach to regulation which recognises that some parts of the DC landscape are more likely than others to deliver good outcomes.