Redundant - but should I have had a pension?

duckman123

My employer, a company of around 15-20 people, has made me redundant. I worked there for 2.5 years and am 52 years old.

Someone has mentioned that I should have had a pension. Although there was a meeting to discuss this some time back and the director mentioned it once or twice, there was no actual pension scheme. Should there have been, does he owe me anything in missed contributions?

Would appreciate any advice.

lal1234

I don't think an employer is obliged to provide a pension scheme? Its your own responsibility to make sure that you've made provisions for your retirement?

duckman123

Thanks lal.

I thought so, but it is surprisingly difficult to find out online. The Pensions Act 2008 talks about mandatory rules from 2012 or something, but I wasn't sure if there was anything currently applying.

ceridwen

I believe the law is that if you're not in a company pension scheme - then your "job pension" entitlement for that period of time will be in SERPS (ie the State Earnings-Related Pension). You need to check with them.

Not sure on the procedure to do this - hopefully someone will come along soon who can help.

reheat

If there was no pension scheme then no contributions will have been deducted, so none owing to you.

thirdparty

If there are more than 5 employees in your company, they must, as a minimum, offer you the chance to take out a stakeholder pension plan. If not they may be liable for a fine of up to £50,000.

It appears that as they did not offer you the chance to take out a pension then no contributions would have been made by yourself or the company and therefore no monies are due to you.

duckman123

Thanks for your comments everyone. I knew they hadn't taken contributions, but I was trying to find out if they should have made some on my behalf.

Anyone interested in following this up can look here:
http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/pdf/pme/pme1nov05.pdf