The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is to prosecute bus services organisation Stotts Tours Oldham and its managing director for failing to automatically enrol 36 employees into a workplace pension.
The Greater Manchester-based organisation and managing director Alan Stott have been summoned to appear at Brighton Magistrates’ Court on 4 October 2017 to face eight charges of wilfully failing to comply with the organisation’s duties under the Pensions Act 2008.
Stotts Tours Oldham has been accused of not complying with section 45 of the Pensions Act 2008, which states that employers must make prescribed arrangements by which employees become active members of an automatic-enrolment pension scheme. Alan Stott has been accused of failing to comply with section 46 of the Act, by either consenting or conniving in the organisation’s offence, or allowing the offence to be committed by neglect.
The maximum sentence that can be delivered in a magistrates’ court for this form of non-compliance is an unlimited fine. If a case were to be heard in a crown court, the maximum sentence that can be applied is two years' imprisonment.
This is the first time that TPR has launched a prosecution for these offences.
Stotts Tours Oldham was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
