The Pensions Regulator revealed that 869 fixed penalty notices of £400 were issued during this period.

TPR used its powers a total of 4,489 times during the last quarter, compared with 4,161 in the previous three months.

Officials issued 3,392 compliance notices and 38 escalating penalty notices. The body does not publish how much these escalating penalty notices amounted to.

As with fines issued by the FCA, the money goes to the Treasury.

In a statement the regulator said: “We are very encouraged to see that thousands of small and micro employers are putting their staff into a pension, and that over six million people have now been able to start saving for their retirement, many for the first time.

“Compliance rates remain very high, and we’ve only had to use our powers on the small proportion of employers who’ve failed to meet their legal duties. We used our powers a total of 4,489 times during the last quarter, compared with 4,161 in the previous three months.”

TPR gave some insight into reasons why some had failed with their duties.

It stated: “We do see some employers end up non-compliant for reasons such as not realising they’re an employer (despite receiving a letter from us) or thinking they’ve completed the declaration of compliance when all they’ve done is register for the Government Gateway.

“Some may be experiencing business difficulties, ill health or other difficult personal circumstances, or may make what they perceive to be an ‘honest mistake’. We’ve come across a number of employers who just assumed that it was the job of someone else in their organisation, or their business adviser, to take care of automatic enrolment for them.”