Royal London Pension Plan · CAS-83537-L0L5

CAS-83537-L0L5

Ombudsman’s Determination Applicant Mr P

Scheme Royal London Pension Plan (the Plan)

Respondent M & G Olympic Products Ltd (the Employer)

Outcome

Complaint summary

Background information, including submissions from the parties In December 2020, Mr P was employed by the Employer. The employee contributions, for December 2020, were paid into the Plan. However, the employer contributions were not paid into the Plan.

Following this, contributions continued to be deducted from Mr P’s wages, however nothing further was paid into the Plan.

On 23 July 2021, the last payment was made into the Plan. This was for the employer contributions that related to December 2020.

On 13 September 2021, Mr P’s representative wrote to the Employer and said that the Employer had previously said, to all employees, that the pension would be fully paid up by the end of July 2021. Mr P says that, despite this assurance by the Employer, the contributions remain unpaid.

On 14 September 2021, the Employer responded by email saying the business had suffered from poor management of client accounts and cash flow and had taken

1 CAS-83537-L0L5 steps to limit the impact on the business. He said the choice was between paying wages and pension or making people redundant.

On 30 January 2022, Mr P submitted an application to The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO).

On 4 February 2022, Mr P opted out of the Plan in order to prevent any further contributions from being deducted from his salary.

On 29 April 2022, Mr P was made redundant.

On 24 June 2022, Mr P received a statement from Royal London, the Plan administrator. This listed the payments that had been made into the Plan for the period that Mr P has complained about. The payments amount to £1,381.90 and have been listed in Appendix One.

Mr P provided TPO with copies of the payslips that he held for the period from 3 December 2020 to 4 February 2022, which detailed the pension contributions deducted from his pay and the corresponding employer contributions. These contributions amounted to £3,628.70. A breakdown of the contributions has been included in Appendix Two.

Caseworker’s Opinion

• The Caseworker stated 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, as the Employer had not responded to any of TPO’s communications, he had to base his Opinion solely on the information provided by Mr P.

• The Caseworker said that he had no reason to doubt the information provided by Mr P. So, in the Caseworker’s Opinion, on the balance of probabilities, contributions had been deducted from Mr P’s salary, that had not been paid into the Plan. In addition, the Employer had not paid any of the employer contributions that were due over the same period. As a result of its maladministration, Mr P was not in the financial position he ought to be in.

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

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Ombudsman’s decision

Directions

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

(ii) produce a schedule (the Schedule) showing the employee contributions deducted from Mr P’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 P.

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(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 P’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 Royal London of any shortfall in Mr P’s units, pay the cost of purchasing any additional units required to make up the shortfall.

Anthony Arter

Pensions Ombudsman 1 December 2022

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Payments into Mr P’s Plan account Payment Date Employee Payment Employer Payment

1 May 2020 £53.34 £40

5 June 2020 £104.20 £78.16

2 July 2020 £73.95 £55.48

18 September 2020 £73.95 £55.48

25 September 2020 £103.98 £77.98

18 December 2020 £89.34 £67.01

23 December 2020 £104.25 £78.19

12 February 2021 £126.47 £94.85

23 July 2021 £105.27 0

Total payments: £1,381.90

Appendix Two

Contributions as shown on payslips Date Employee contributions Employer contributions

01 April 2021 £1193.29 £895.04 (YTD) (Year To Date Figure) (Year To Date Figure)

28 January 2022 £880.19 £660.18 (Year To Date Figure) (Year To Date Figure)

Total contributions: £3,628.70

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