Inspectors from the The Pensions Regulator have been sent to visit businesses in the Greater Manchester area as part of investigations into compliance.

The body has carried out spot checks in that region to ensure employers are complying with their automatic enrolment duties.

In the first three months of 2017, TPR issued a total of 4,673 fixed penalty notices and 1,043 escalating penalty notices across the country.

Inspection teams visited dozens of businesses in and around Manchester to check that qualifying staff are being given the workplace pensions they are entitled to, TPR reported, as part of a nationwide enforcement campaign which began in London.

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A TPR statement read: “Last week Greater Manchester became the second area to be the focus of the short-notice inspections. Visits will begin in other towns and cities across the UK in the following weeks.

“The checks will also help TPR understand whether employers are facing any unnecessary challenges that we can help them with, such as by improving our guidance.

“But they will also highlight employers who have not taken the required steps to become or remain compliant, paving the way for enforcement action.”

Darren Ryder, TPR's acting director of automatic enrolment, said: "The vast majority of employers become compliant ahead of their deadline but visits help us to identify why some have not, so we can take action where we need to.

"Every employer has workplace pension duties and we are determined that every worker gets the pension they are entitled to.

"Automatic enrolment is not an option, it’s the law. Where we find employers are not complying with the law, we will use our powers to make them comply."

More than 500,000 employers across the UK have met their automatic enrolment duties, with nearly eight million workers given workplace pensions as a result.

New data to the end of April 2017 showed that in Manchester more than 3,100 employers have met their duties, along with more than 2,000 in Bolton, 1,300 in Bury, 1,400 in Oldham, 1,400 in Rochdale, 1,600 in Salford, 2,200 in Stockport, 1,300 in Tameside, 1,900 in Trafford and 2,000 in Wigan.

Across Greater Manchester as a whole, around 300,000 staff have signed up for workplace pensions to date.