Date - 30 August 2020
Request
I would like to formally request the names, registered company number and the name of the pension provider they have registered with for all businesses in England who were legally required to enrolled in pension schemes since the auto enrollment began and who have failed to register any employees.
On the 28 September you’ve clarified that “…by failed to register employees" I mean, companies which have not recorded or failed to declared any employees or enrolled no employees.
Response
I can confirm that we hold information falling within scope of your request. However, we are unable to supply the information requested for the reasons set out below.
Information we are not able to supply
Section 44 of the Freedon of Information Act 2000 (FoIA)
As we have been given strong powers to demand documents and other information from trustees, employers and others, those powers are also balanced by restrictions on how we disclose the information provided to us.
The information held on our register is information we receive in the exercise of our statutory functions and is considered ‘restricted information’.
Restricted information is defined at section 82(4) of the Pensions Act 2004 (PA04) as:
‘information obtained by the Regulator in the exercise of its functions which relates to the business or other affairs of any person’.
Under section 82(5) of the PA04 it is a criminal offence to disclose such information except as permitted under that Act.
Whilst the FoIA is based on the presumption of releasing information, section 44(1)(a) of the FoIA provides an absolute exemption to the requirement to disclose any information if its disclosure is prohibited by or under any enactment. In this case, section 82 of the PA04 prohibits disclosure and we are unable to disclose the register, extracts from the register or confirm whether a specific employer or pension scheme is listed on the register.
Duty to provide advice and assistance
Please see Automatic Enrolment guidance and What happens if the employer fails to comply with their legal duties for automatic enrolment.
The Enforcement bulletins page provides information about our cases and the powers we have used. It is designed to help employers, their advisers, trustees and administrators understand the type of compliance and enforcement interventions we undertake.
Please see the Penalty notices page. Section 89 of the Pensions Act 2004 gives us the power to publish information on cases where we have exercised or considered exercising our powers.
You may wish to review our research and analysis webpage which provides detailed analysis of various sections of the pension landscape. For example, we present the data in a variety of ways, including by membership, by scheme status and employer type.