Employer "forgetting" to pay salary sacrifice pension

Dommett

Hope somebody might have some advice for me on here, but 3 years ago my employer (huge global company) changed the pension scheme to salary sacrifice with a new provider.

As it turns out, for some reason (as yet unknown, assumed admin error) they forgot to setup my pension and therefore have not being paying in.

I have all the original documentation and emails from HR that clearly state there is nothing to do, that enrolment is automatic etc, even an email where I asked HR and the response was "yes you're enrolled".

From my point of view I thought it was clear cut (and the director of my business unit assured me it would be fine). However now HR have got involved at HQ, they've accused me of not noticing that it wasn't declared on my P60 (which as we're a Tax & Accounting company was easy to find somebody who corrected them as it does not appear).

They've said I should have noticed the amount wasn't coming out of my salary, and I've argued that it was their responsibility to make the payments as per the contractual agreement and as far as I'm aware my salary had been sacrificed.

It was difficult to know whether my salary was sacrificed, as the changeover occurred at the start of a new tax year, when the month before we get a bonus, and that month contains the payrise for the next year, plus they had a payroll error that month, so the amounts are all over the place, so my salary did increase, but not as much as I would have expected it to, so it was my understanding this was already sacrificed as has been for the last 3+ years.

I've been advised to visit the CAB but was hoping not to involve any external parties to resolve the matter, I just wanted them to sort it, but it's quite a large sum of money.

Does anybody have any advice on what they'd expect to happen, and what they'd expect was reasonable to accept from them.

Wobblydeb

Was the money taken out of your salary or not? It sounds as if you were paid the full amount without sacrifice, but I am not certain from your post.

somethingcorporate

Salary Sacrifice reduces your gross salary so it should be fairly obvious whether it has been sacrificed or not - not noticing for 3 years is a bit crazy - you should see an adjustment on your payslip.

Personally, I would escalate and keep escalating. If you have documentary evidence that you should have been in the scheme they should reinstate it. Unfortunately this means they will need to take 3 years of contributions from you and you may need to take advice on what you have lost from not being invested over the last 3 years (which could be quite significant given the market has been on a modest upward trend).

This is a really horrible situation, partly of your own causing I am afraid to say - "not noticing" has really compounded the issue - 1-2 months is easy to fix whereas this is a significant proportion of your working life so you are going to come up against some stiff resistance. I had an issue with my pension when I first started work and I had to escalate up to a director and it was all fixed and put right but that was only worth a couple of months contribution.

You may need to take it on the chin as a last resort but I really think this would only be the case if you gave up the fight - although one thing I would be mindful of is can you afford to lose a month (or three's) salary to make up for the contributions that you haven't been making?

xylophone

http://www.pensions-ombudsman.org.uk/Complaints/What_we_can_investigate/index.aspx
It is three years since the error occurred but you have only just become aware?

ozzage

Are you really willing to pay back that salary so that it can then be put into the pension? That would surely be the only outcome?

It's not like you didn't receive the money!