The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) has upheld a complaint against Staylists Ltd for failing to pay pension contributions into the complainant's pension scheme and directed it to pay the missing contributions.

The firm was also told that it should pay £1,000 for the “serious distress and inconvenience” that it has caused.

The complainant, identified in the ruling as Mr H, alleged that Staylists had, despite deducting contributions from his pay, failed to pay contributions into the Nest Pension Plan and that the missing contributions amounted to £5,659.11.

On 8 September 2022, TPO wrote to Staylists to ask for more information in response to Mr H’s complaint, a request which was repeated on 22 September 2022 but neither of which received a response.

When the caseworker made its ruling on the case, it stated that, whilst normally it would seek agreement from all parties on the facts of the complaint, as the employer had not responded to any TPO communications, he had to base his opinion solely on the information provided by Mr H and ruled in favour of the complainant.

When Staylists did not respond to the caseworker’s opinion, the complaint was passed to the ombudsman to consider who ruled in agreement with the caseworker.

The ombudsman ruled that employee contributions were deducted but held back by Staylists and not paid into Nest, and that the employer failed to rectify this and did not engage with either the ombudsman’s office or Mr H.

To put matters right, TPO ruled that Staylists should, within 28 days of the determination, pay Mr H £1,000 for the serious distress and inconvenience he has experienced, produce a schedule showing the employee contributions deducted from Mr H’s pay in respect of the period of his employment, and forward the schedule to Mr H.

Staylists was further directed to, within 14 days of receiving a request by Mr H, provide him with any reasonable additional information, in order for him to be able to check the details the schedule.

TPO also stated that, within 14 days of receiving confirmation from Mr H that he agrees with the information on the schedule, Staylists shall pay the missing contributions to the scheme.

Staylists was ordered to establish with Nest whether the late payment of contributions has meant that fewer units were purchased in Mr H’s scheme account than he would have otherwise secured, had the contributions been paid on time and pay any reasonable administration fee should the administrator charge a fee for carrying out the calculation.

It was also directed that, with 14 days of receiving confirmation from Nest of any shortfall in Mr H’s units, pay the cost of purchasing any additional units required to make up the shortfall.

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