Nest · CAS-68407-V4S4

CAS-68407-V4S4

Ombudsman’s Determination Applicant Mr R

Scheme NEST (the Plan)

Respondent Fallis Construction Ltd (the Employer)

Outcome

Complaint summary

Background information, including submissions from the parties In June 2014, Mr R began his employment with the Employer.

Between February 2020 and November 2020, the Employer failed to pay pension contributions due into the Plan.

Mr R was unable to provide copies of the payslips for the period from February 2020 to November 2020 as these were not provided to him by the Employer. However, Mr R was able to provide a contribution history and screenshots from his NEST account, which showed that no contributions were paid after 6 February 2020

On 25 November 2020, Mr R ceased employment with the Employer.

On 15 December 2020, Mr R raised the issue of the unpaid contributions with the Employer. The Employer said it would be resolved by the weekend.

On 4 January 2021, Mr R raised the issue of unpaid contributions again with the Employer.

1 CAS-68407-V4S4 On 12 January 2021, Mr R brought his complaint to The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO).

On 14 January 2021, Mr R emailed the Employer and requested a resolution to the issue regarding the unpaid contributions.

On 25 January 2021 and 8 March 2021, Mr R repeated his request.

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. He said that although the Employer

2 CAS-68407-V4S4 acknowledged it had not paid the pension contributions, it did not fully engage with TPO when TPO requested payslips or a contribution breakdown.

• The Employer agreed it was responsible for the error and accepted TPO’s suggested resolution. So, there was no question that an error had occurred, and the Employer was responsible. The Employer failed to resolve the issue as it had promised. As a result of the Employer’s maladministration, Mr R was not in the financial position he ought to be in.

• In the Caseworker’s view, Mr R had suffered serious distress and inconvenience due to the Employer’s maladministration. The Caseworker was of the opinion that an award of £1,000 for non-financial injustice was appropriate in the circumstances.

Ombudsman’s decision

Directions

(i) pay Mr R £1,000 for the serious distress and inconvenience he has experienced;

3 CAS-68407-V4S4 (ii) produce a schedule (the Schedule) showing the employee contributions deducted from Mr R’s pay in respect of the period of his employment. The Schedule shall also include the corresponding employer contributions that were due to the Plan; and

(iii) forward the Schedule to Mr R.

(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 Mr R’s Plan account than he 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 Mr R’s units, pay the cost of purchasing any additional units required to make up the shortfall.

Dominic Harris

Pensions Ombudsman 23 March 2023

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