There is confusion surrounding a missed pension payment by Thames Ambulance to its pension provider Nest.

Yesterday, 31 January 2017, union GMB accused Thames Ambulance of failing to make its own pension contributions or pass on its employees’ pension contributions to Nest.

However, Thames Ambulance denied this was the case, and assured that “there are no deficiencies or missing payments into their respective schemes”.

Thames Ambulance contributes into two schemes for its staff; Nest for Thames Ambulance contract holders and The NHS Superannuation Scheme for staff who have been transferred across from the NHS into Thames Ambulance via TUPE.

GMB had also accused Thames Ambulance of failing to make payments into the NHS pension scheme but Thames Ambulance denied this as well. It said all contributions have been paid since approval by the NHS Pensions Agency in full and on time.

“Thames Ambulance has placed the balance of member’s funds into a deposit account ready to be claimed by the Agency as their systems require. Thames Ambulance is actively working with the NHS Pensions Agency to expedite this but the timetable is not in in Thames Ambulance’s hands.

“The suggestion by GMB that Thames Ambulance would use such funds for purposes other than intended is scandalous. Such scaremongering is not only unsettling for our staff but is ill-considered and undermines positive employee relations,” the company said.

With regards to the Nest, Thames Ambulance said that Nest did not draw down one particular month’s contributions. However, it said the issue has now been rectified and all payments due for the month in question have been paid. All payments due to the Nest scheme are taken by direct debit on the due date.

A spokesperson for Thames Ambulance told Pensions Age: “Nest and the bank involved are investigating this error that occurred on a particular month themselves, although it has now been processed correctly.”

As a result, GMB has said it is considering Thames Ambulance’s claim that Nest and the NHS pension scheme are responsible for the non-payments of pension contributions. However, it said staff still have no idea where or who has their money.

GMB said that as of yesterday, 31 January 2017, both schemes were still informing members that payments had not been received or credited to their individual schemes.

Commenting, GMB organiser Gary Palmer said: “GMB are pleased that Thames have made such a strong assurance and guarantee that they have not deliberately or inadvertently withheld staff pension payments and that it’s the fault of the pension providers themselves.

“It’s only a pity they didn’t pursue the pension provider to ensure that payments were in fact finding their way to individual accounts earlier as our members have been worried sick, and rightly so when every enquiry from their pension providers is met with a 'no payments received' reply.

“We very strongly refute the claim from Thames that GMB have undermined employee relations by simply raising our members serious concerns, especially in light of their ex-SECAmb colleagues pension experiences at Docklands.”

Despite this, there have been reports by GMB that Nest has reported Thames Ambulance to The Pensions Regulator over the late payments. However, guidance on the regulator’s website does not require a provider to report a scheme over an administrative error.

A Nest spokesperson said: “While we can’t discuss individual cases, Nest policy is to communicate often and early with employers who are late with their contributions. If employers don’t resolve the late payment, Nest will make late payment reports to TPR in line with their code of practice. We can confirm that Nest’s referrals to The Pensions Regulator have been in line with their code of practice.”

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