Working through agency connected to job centre

Liz65

Hi, has anyone on here had any dealings with an agency through the job centre called Challenge-try?

My daughter’s boyfriend has been working with them for a while and has had nothing but hassle.

They have been taking money from his wages to pay a pension into someone else’s account but won’t tell him who it is because of data protection but this person must now have all his details.

They regularly mess up his wages and overtime worked, he gets much less than he earns and paying more tax than he should be.  

This has been going on for months now!  They apparently sorted the pension chaos but he has recently had it happen again.  

It seems that the job centre, the agency and HMRC are taking no responsibility and blaming each other.

is there any legal avenues he can go down that are low cost or free, I think he has written to ombudsman already and waiting to hear from them.

Any advice would be great as they are struggling at the moment like everyone else with the cost of living etc, seems extremely unfair when someone is try to get ahead that this is happening to them.

Many thanks

General_Grant

Liz65 said:

Hi, has anyone on here had any dealings with an agency through the job centre called Challenge-try?

My daughter’s boyfriend has been working with them for a while and has had nothing but hassle.

They have been taking money from his wages to pay a pension into someone else’s account but won’t tell him who it is because of data protection but this person must now have all his details.

They regularly mess up his wages and overtime worked, he gets much less than he earns and paying more tax than he should be.  

This has been going on for months now!  They apparently sorted the pension chaos but he has recently had it happen again.  

It seems that the job centre, the agency and HMRC are taking no responsibility and blaming each other.

is there any legal avenues he can go down that are low cost or free, I think he has written to ombudsman already and waiting to hear from them.

Any advice would be great as they are struggling at the moment like everyone else with the cost of living etc, seems extremely unfair when someone is try to get ahead that this is happening to them.

Many thanks

I had never heard of that agency but, if it is challenge-trg, according to their website they are "one of the UK’s leading recruitment businesses".

If things are wrong with the payments, then it is the agency's responsibility to get it right.
Does the young man use their payslip portal?

I see the agency is a member of the REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation).  So he could make a complaint to them.  See Making a complaint :: The REC .  The complaint to the REC would be the second stage after complaining direct to the agency.

Grumpy_chap

Who is the pension with?
Does he have access to a pension portal (at the pension provider) where he can see contributions to his pension account?
Whatever is shown as pension deductions on the payslip from the Agency should show as contributions to the pension account (this may show as different transaction amounts because of the way the payslip and the pension show employer and employee contributions - they may be combined in one and not the other - or weekly pay may show as monthly pension contributions but the total pension contributions should match the payslip).

He does not need to know who the pension contributions have been paid to - that is for the Agency to resolve if they have sent the funds to the incorrect destination.  All he needs to know is what should have been paid to his pension and has it been received by his pension.  If that payment has not been made, then the Agency need to make the correct contributions and fully resolve.

I have assumed this is a pension linked to the Agency.  It could change things if the pension contributions are being made to a pre-existing SIPP and the incorrect payment details were provided to the Agency by the employee.

Liz65

Thank you for replies, I will pass them on