Employer has not been paying my additional contributions to pension company

hawkis

Exactly as the title suggests...
I've been making additional contributions directly from my pay into my workplace pension.
My payslips reflect these amounts but the pension provider statement only shows my minimum contributions.
I.E., if my minimum is £100 and I pay and additional £50, my payslip shows this £150 contribution but the pension statement only shows the £100 minimum contribution.
I've spoken to the pension provider and they tell me that they've only received the amounts on the statement which are the required minimums.
Obviously, something's gone wrong!
I'm a bit annoyed as I think I'll have lost some interest earned on the amount not in the pension and also, where has the money gone?
I've got my employer looking into it and await their response.

So, not really sure what to ask other than has anyone else experienced this and does anyone think I need to take this any further assuming my employer sorts it out, pays the money with a bit extra on top to make up for interest lost?

Anonymous101

I wouldn't take it further if they correct their error and pay some interest on top. I don't know likely they are to pay the interest though? Perhaps you'll have to threaten further action to get that.

Brynsam

It would be a good idea to find out for sure what went wrong.

Once this has been sorted out, ask the pension provider to confirm what the return would have been had your funds been invested at the correct time. Depending on the fund(s) used they might actually have gone down in value!

hawkis

Brynsam wrote: »

It would be a good idea to find out for sure what went wrong.

Once this has been sorted out, ask the pension provider to confirm what the return would have been had your funds been invested at the correct time. Depending on the fund(s) used they might actually have gone down in value!

I'd already thought of that so said "including any calculated interest and recompense".

Also, just noticed some of my minimum contributions are missing from the pension statement so I've asked my employer to check this and go back to when it started to prove the minimums have been paid.

atush

First stop, have you asked HR? Someoen may have dropped the ball?

brewerdave

Have any of your workmates experienced the same issue?

May be irrelevant but I worked for a reasonably big company in private ownership -they used to hold back pension contributions every now and then ,to help out their cash flow!!!

Alexland

brewerdave wrote: »

May be irrelevant but I worked for a reasonably big company in private ownership -they used to hold back pension contributions every now and then ,to help out their cash flow!!!

Another clue of trouble would be the unexplained late payment of expenses. When a company starts using employees as a cashflow smoother it's probably time to find a new job!

However in this case if the contributions have been made but at the wrong amount it's probably just an admin error. Still makes you wonder how they balance their payroll cost centers at the end of each month.

Alex

tv21

Yes. It has happened to me. Twice, in fact, which suggests it's a routine admin slip-up. They dealt with it efficiently enough.

I'd recommend everybody paying extra into a pension should check every year that it's still going on, and especially after you change job title or employer.

Alexland

tv21 wrote: »

I'd recommend everybody paying extra into a pension should check every year that it's still going on, and especially after you change job title or employer.

Yup my employer once missed a monthly payment completely and it only affected me. They only realised when I contacted them a couple of weeks later. I have no idea if this would have been an ongoing problem in future months. On these forums we don't really hear from people who have suffered as a result of long term payroll errors. Maybe it's rare or maybe people don't ever notice.

Alex

OldMusicGuy

Same thing happened to me for about one year at a company I worked for. It only came to light after I left (I wasn't paying enough attention to my pension pots at the time to be honest). They gave me a cheque for all the missed contributions plus interest.

The sad thing was the company was well known for its allegedly excellent HR practices!

Alexland

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

They gave me a cheque for all the missed contributions plus interest.

Interesting, how did that work from a tax perspective?