On the go: Bolton Textiles Group has been told by the Pensions Ombudsman to make up for an employee’s missing pension contributions, as well as paying £1,000 for the distress it has caused her.
Bolton Textiles Ltd went into administration in 2017, with all of its employees transferred to Bolton Textiles Group.
Mrs Y, an employee of Bolton Textiles Ltd for more than 27 years, received a letter from Nest at the end of 2018 to inform her that it was reporting Bolton Textiles Group to the Pensions Regulator after the company had failed to pay pension contributions for the period spanning from August 31 2018 to September 6 2018.
After being contacted by Nest, Mrs Y questioned Bolton Textiles Group about the issue and was told that the matter would be dealt with. She received at least five more letters from Nest in 2019 and made a further complaint to her employer, which did not elicit a response.
Mrs Y subsequently complained to the ombudsman in June 2019 that Bolton Textiles Group had not paid the correct contributions to Nest since September 2018.
Having been told by the ombudsman to contact Mrs Y, her employer finally got in touch, with a response that “included a number of derogatory comments about Mrs Y personally and about her employment”.
Bolton Textiles Group did, however, acknowledge that it had not paid her contributions, which it said was because it was not making enough profits, also attributing the unpaid contributions to an increase in the minimum wage. It assured Mrs Y that her contributions would be paid when its financial situation improved.
Further efforts were made to resolve the matter informally with the employer, but these did not prove successful.
The ombudsman upheld her complaint, noting that while the employer had failed to pay contributions from September 2018, it had continued to deduct employee contributions from Mrs Y’s salary from September 19 2018 to May 3 2019.
“There is no doubt that maladministration has occurred and that BTGL has failed in its legal duties as an employer,” Pensions Ombudsman Anthony Arter said in its March 3 ruling.
“BTGL could have resolved the situation when Mrs Y brought the matter to its attention as early as December 2018, but it actively decided not to do so.”
The employer was ordered within 28 days of the ombudsman’s ruling to pay £1,000 to Mrs Y as compensation for the distress it has caused her, along with providing a schedule of the missing employee contributions that have not been remitted to Nest.
Following Mrs Y’s agreement, the employer will have a fortnight to pay the missing employee and employer contributions to Nest.
It will also pay the cost of correcting any shortfall that may have occurred, if it can be established that the late payment of contributions has meant fewer units were bought in Mrs Y’s Nest account than they would have been if the contributions had been paid correctly.
