Nest · CAS-41889-X8Q9

CAS-41889-X8Q9

Ombudsman’s Determination Applicant Mrs S

Scheme NEST (the Plan)

Respondent Taylor Robinson Estate Agents (the Employer)

Outcome

Complaint summary

Background information, including submissions from the parties Between April 2016 and November 2018, the Employer failed to pay pension contributions into the Plan.

On 17 November 2018, Mrs S sent an email to the Employer asking for details of her pension.

On 27 November 2018, Mrs S emailed the Employer as she was still waiting to receive the details of the Plan.

On the same day, the Employer confirmed the Plan administrator was NEST. It said that it had requested a statement to show the current Plan value. It said that, once this was received, it would forward it to Mrs S. However, Mrs S did not receive an update.

On 26 September 2019, Mrs S brought her complaint to The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO).

Mrs S provided copies of the payslips that she held for the period from April 2016 to November 2018, which detailed the pension contributions deducted from her pay and 1 CAS-41889-X8Q9 the corresponding employer contributions. A breakdown of the deductions has been included in the Appendix.

On 26 November 2019, the Employer provided a pension history report. This showed the total outstanding unpaid contributions were £886.89.

On 28 January 2020, a contribution schedule was provided by NEST. This showed between 29 November 2019 and 28 January 2020 £469.63 in employee contributions and £447.26 in employer contributions were invested into the Plan. This matched the total of £886.89 from the pension history report previously provided by the Employer.

On 12 March 2020, the Employer provided a further pension history report. This showed the contributions history and what payments had been paid into the Plan. The payments equalled £886.89.

£129.40 of this accounted for the unpaid contributions between 30 April 2016 and 31 August 2016. The remaining £757.49 accounted for the unpaid contributions between 30 June 2017 to 30 November 2018.

On 20 April 2020, TPO contacted the Employer as some contributions appeared to still be missing.

On 22 April 2020, the Employer responded to TPO. It said it had already paid £129.40 to the Plan, which was part of the breakdown mentioned above. It apologised and said that it was happy to contribute any financial loss associated with the late payments. It said that the unpaid contributions were down to an administrative error.

On 15 July 2020, TPO informed the Employer that Mrs S had suffered distress and inconvenience and was seeking compensation. It said the financial loss calculation from the Plan administrator was just over £123 (the financial loss).

On 21 August 2020, TPO contacted the Employer again. It asked for whether the financial loss calculated by the Plan administrators had been paid and asked whether about payment of distress and inconvenience.

2 CAS-41889-X8Q9

Caseworker’s Opinion

• The Caseworker said that TPO’s normal approach, in cases such as these, was to seek agreement from all parties on the facts of the complaint, including the dates and amounts of contributions involved.

• The Employer accepted that not all contributions were paid on time, so an error had occurred, and the Employer was responsible.

• Our normal approach for cases like this would be to seek agreement from all parties as to the dates and amounts of contributions involved.

• The Caseworker said that he had no reason to doubt the information provided by both Mrs S as she had provided evidence to show that contributions were paid late. The Employer also apologised for the delay in registering Mrs S to the Plan, so it was the Caseworker’s Opinion, that contributions had been deducted from

3 CAS-41889-X8Q9 Mrs S’ salary, but had not been paid into the Plan on time. This amounted to clear maladministration.

• In the Caseworker’s view, Mrs S would have suffered distress and inconvenience at the thought of her pension contributions being lost. However, the Employer has accepted that there was maladministration and has offered to pay £750 to cover the non-financial loss, which the Caseworker thought was an appropriate resolution.

Ombudsman’s decision

Directions

(i) pay Mrs S £1,000 for the serious distress and inconvenience she has experienced;

(ii) produce a schedule (the Schedule) showing the employee contributions deducted from Mrs S’ pay in respect of the period of her employment. The Schedule shall also include the corresponding employer contributions that were due to the Plan; and 4 CAS-41889-X8Q9 (iii) forward the Schedule to Mrs S.

(i) pay the missing contributions to the Plan;

(ii) establish with the Plan whether the late payment of contributions has meant that fewer units were purchased in Mrs S’ Plan account than she would have otherwise secured, had the contributions been paid on time; and

(iii) pay any reasonable administration fee should the Plan administrator charge a fee for carrying out the above calculation.

Within 14 days of receiving confirmation from NEST of any shortfall in Mrs S’ units, pay the cost of purchasing any additional units required to make up the shortfall.

Dominic Harris

Pensions Ombudsman 4 May 2023

5 CAS-41889-X8Q9 Appendix Date Employee contributions Employer contributions

30/04/2016 £11.33 £14.17

31/05/2016 £13.01 £16.27

30/06/2016 £11.89 £14.87

31/07/2016 £11.33 £14.17

31/08/2016 £9.94 £12.42

30/09/2016 None None

31/10/2016 None None

30/11/2016 None None

31/12/2016 None None

31/01/2017 None None

28/02/2017 None None

31/03/2017 None None

30/04/2017 None None

31/05/2017 None None

30/06/2017 £9.10 £11.38

31/07/2017 £10.01 £12.51

31/08/2017 £10.01 £12.51

30/092017 £10.13 £12.66

31/10/2017 £11.33 £14.16

30/11/2017 £10.61 £13.26

31/12/2017 £10.45 £13.06

31/01/2018 £10.33 £12.91

28/02/2018 £10.69 £13.36

31/03/2018 £10.33 £12.91

30/04/2018 £31.71 £26.43

6 CAS-41889-X8Q9 31/05/2018 £33.51 £27.93

30/06/2018 £33.03 £27.53

31/07/2018 £37.23 £31.03

31/08/2018 £36.27 £30.23

30/09/2018 £33.03 £27.53

31/10/2018 £43.11 £35.93

30/11/2018 £38.88 £32.40

7