The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) has upheld a complaint against Solutions4Health Limited and directed that it should pay £1,000 for the “serious distress and inconvenience” caused.

The complainant, identified in the ruling as Mrs S, alleged that Solutions4Health failed to pay contributions into her Nest scheme despite deducting them from her pay.

TPO’s ruling detailed that, on 13 July 2015, Solutions4Health wrote to Mrs S to advise that it would be enrolling her into a Scottish Widows' pension scheme and would be deducting pension contributions from her pay on 31 July 2015.

However, according to the complaint, none of these contributions were paid to Scottish Widows between July 2015 and April 2017.

On 9 May 2017, Solutions4Health enrolled Mrs S into the Nest scheme and the first contribution was received by the scheme on 16 May 2017, but the majority of the subsequent contributions deducted between June 2017 and December 2018 were paid into the scheme late.

Mrs S said that she became aware of the unpaid contributions around December 2018 and raised this with the employer.

The complainant was made redundant on 31 March 2019 and said that she was promised by Solutions4Health that the unpaid contributions would be settled before this date and, whilst the employer made a one-off payment of £450.28 to the scheme in respect of the unpaid contributions, Mrs S remained unhappy having suffered investment loss.

Mrs S then complained to TPO where her complaint was first considered by an adjudicator, who concluded that further action was required by Solutions4Health as it had failed to make up any investment loss that the late payment of contributions caused.

The adjudicator therefore ruled in favour of Mrs S and was awarded £1,000 for non-financial injustice but, after Solutions4Health did not respond the adjudicator’s opinion, the complaint was passed to the ombudsman.

The ombudsman ruled that Solutions4Health’s failure to pay employee and employer contributions into the scheme on time amounts to unjust enrichment and caused Mrs S to suffer a financial loss and the employer should take actions to put matters right.

To put matters right, TPO directed that Solutions4Health request that Scottish Widows calculate any loss of investment gains from the due date of each contribution to the date of the calculation, on the assumption the contributions were invested in Mrs S’ chosen investment fund for the period July 2015 to April 2017.

Solutions4Health were also directed to request that Nest calculate any loss of investment gains from the due date of each contribution to the date of calculation, on the assumption the contributions were invested in Mrs S’ chosen investment fund for the period June 2017 to December 2018.

TPO then directed Solutions4Health to pay the calculated amounts into the scheme as lump sums to be invested into Mrs S’ Nest account, within 21 days of receiving calculations from Nest and Scottish Widows.

Solutions4Health were also directed to pay any reasonable administration fee charged by Nest and Scottish Widows for making the necessary calculations, as well as £1,000 direct to Mrs S for the serious distress and inconvenience suffered.

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