Automatic enrolment penalties
FOI reference - FOI-436
Date - 24 November 2025
Request
Please provide the following information relating to automatic enrolment enforcement.
- The number of Fixed Penalty Notices (£400) issued in each financial year from 2015–16 to 2024–25 (or latest available).
- The number of Escalating Penalty Notices issued in each of those years.
- For each year, a breakdown of penalty notices by employer size (micro, small, medium, large) as defined by TPR or BEIS classifications.
- For each year, the number of Fixed Penalty Notices that were:
- appealed
- upheld
- reduced
- cancelled/withdrawn
- The average elapsed time (in days) between an employer missing a re-declaration or declaration of compliance and the issuing of a Fixed Penalty Notice.
- Copies of any internal guidance or policy documents that set out the process for contacting employers before issuing a Fixed Penalty Notice, including any required steps, escalation criteria, or thresholds.
- Details of any KPIs, performance measures, or internal targets relating to enforcement or penalty income within the automatic enrolment regime.
On 4 December 2025 you kindly clarified that whether you are only interested in penalties relating to the declaration or re-declaration of compliance.
Response
Under Section 12(4) of the FoIA and the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, public authorities are permitted to aggregate two or more requests received from the same requester for the purpose of calculating the cost limit. We have therefore treated your two requests (FOI-435 & FOI-436) as a single aggregated request.
We have assessed the time required to locate, retrieve, and extract the requested information for the full scope of your enquiry. We have determined that complying with the requests in full would exceed the appropriate limit set out in the Fees Regulations. However, we are mindful of our duty to provide assistance under Section 16 of the FoIA. Therefore, we have conducted work up to the appropriate limit and have been able to collate some of the data you requested.
Please note that we are unable to provide the remaining data as doing so would exceed the statutory cost limit.
| Year | Number of Fixed penalty notices |
|---|---|
| 2015/16 | 1,655 |
| 2016/17 | 11,803 |
| 2017/18 | 26,871 |
| 2018/19 | 27,051 |
| 2019/20 | 14,330 |
| 2020/21 | 14,628 |
| 2021/22 | 21,648 |
| 2022/23 | 21,127 |
| 2023/24 | 22,444 |
| 2024/25 | 26,654 |
| Total | 188,211 |
| Year | Number of Escalating Penalty Notices |
|---|---|
| 2015/16 | 121 |
| 2016/17 | 2,240 |
| 2017/18 | 6,128 |
| 2018/19 | 6,796 |
| 2019/20 | 3,043 |
| 2020/21 | 2,506 |
| 2021/22 | 5,842 |
| 2022/23 | 5,169 |
| 2023/24 | 5,555 |
| 2024/25 | 5,738 |
| Total | 43,138 |
I hope that this response has provided you with the information you were seeking. If you have any further questions or require clarification, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. Thank you for your interest in our organisation.