The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) has upheld a missing contributions complaint against Smart Dough Limited and directed it to pay the missing contributions into the scheme and £1,000 to the complainant for “serious distress and inconvenience”.

The complainant, identified in TPO’s ruling as Mrs O, alleged that Smart Dough had, despite deducting contributions from her pay, failed to pay contributions into the Now Pensions scheme amounting to £1,277.27.

Mrs O detailed that pension contributions had been deducted from her pay but not paid into the scheme between 25 August 2017 and 28 March 2020.

In July, TPO made an attempt to contact Smart Dough for its response to Mrs O’s complaint, but the employer failed to respond by the deadline.

Mrs O’s complaint was first considered by a TPO caseworker who stated that, whilst it is TPO’s normal approach to seek agreement from all parties on the facts of the complaint, as Smart Dough had not responded to any of TPO’s communications, she had to base her opinion solely on the information provided by Mrs O.

The caseworker ruled in favour of Mrs O but, after Smart Dough did not respond to the caseworker’s opinion, the complaint was passed to the ombudsman to consider.

The ombudsman stated that it found that employee contributions were deducted but held back by Smart Dough and not paid into the scheme, and that the employer’s failure amounted to “unjust enrichment” that caused Mrs O to suffer a financial loss and that Smart Dough should take action remedial action to put it right.

TPO directed Smart Dough to pay Mrs O £1,000 for the serious distress and inconvenience she had experienced, produce a schedule showing the employee contributions deducted from Mrs O’s pay in respect of the period of her employment, and forward the schedule to Mrs O.

The ombudsman also directed that Smart Dough should, within 14 days of receiving a request by Mrs O, provide her with any reasonable additional information, in order for her to be able to check the details in the schedule.

After receiving confirmation from Mrs O that she agrees with the information on the schedule, Smart Sough was ordered to pay the missing contributions to the scheme and establish with Now Pensions whether the late payment of contributions had meant fewer units were purchased in Mrs O’s scheme account than she would have otherwise secured.

Smart Dough was also directed to pay any reasonable administration fee should Now Pension’s administrator charge a fee for carrying out the above calculation.

TPO also directed that, within 14 days of receiving confirmation from the Now Pensions administrator of any shortfall in Mrs O’s units, pay the cost of purchasing any additional units required to make up the shortfall.

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