To Complain on Behalf of All Parents At Work

[RiteousIndignation]

Around ten years ago, I discovered that, due to an accounting error in the systems used, the company I work for wasn't paying people on maternity/parental leave the correct pension contributions. I fought tooth and nail to get this rectified and it took years of back and forth. I'm not on the board and I'm not a shareholder which made things difficult but I thought I'd had the problem fixed. I spoke to a colleague on maternity leave yesterday and found out that it's still happening.

I escalated my previous thread and have been told that it's none of my business because I haven't been affected this time and essentially to wind my neck in. I have female members of staff that are likely to be affected if they have children, so I disagree. And I was the person that reported it last time and so feel invested.

I really don't think I ABU but I feel hugely anxious about being told to stand down and not letting this go.

YANBU - in a management position, you have a moral obligation to wield what power you do have to make sure others aren't disadvantaged.

YABU - you've done your moral duty by reporting it and it'll do no one any favours by you continuing to push this/escalating it further.

I'm not sure, you're not sure, so tbh you've basically agreed with my post there.

Drop it but contact pension regulator

@RiteousIndignation You need to contact your legal dept or if you have a whistle blowing contact email/dept. If this has happened before your company should have not only backdated the payments to those affected but also revised their pension processes/checks. We had the same thing happen at our company. We issued the backdated payments and revised our process to make sure we included this going forward. I also saw the news article in more recent months.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-14490891/amp/Women-maternity-leave-owed-thousands-employer-thanks-simple-loophole.html

news.sky.com/story/common-error-could-leave-thousands-of-women-out-of-pocket-in-pensions-without-realising-13323370

The reason many don’t notice the error is because it is usually lower earners where the top up needed would be less than £20. If you are a higher earner and checking your contributions then it is more noticeable. One the whole majority of people do not check their contributions, especially if they are on lower contribution schemes. They may already have a partial contribution but need to be topped up. The top up on the whole is minimal but obviously still adds up and the employee is entitled to it.

As a qualified payroll manager, you learn this. Even experience non-quals would know.

When i started in my current employer, i did an audit of all statutory processes in my first two week and found out they were making this common mistake.
I simply rectified it on the system so it was correct going forward for all mat leaves and calculated under payment for all previous periods. It wasnt difficult!! i did the calcs, presented to Director with costs and risks of no complying.
I'm surprised your payroll dept haven't done such a simple thing!

Jut to add, did you notify the pension regulator? If not, drop that in to convo!

This is a material breach of law that the Pensions Regulator would be interested in because it’s systemic and it hasn’t been remedied despite the company being on notice of problem for a long time.

Report it. People should get the missing contributions and investment loss.

Do you have any informal channels to communicate to people in your workplace? Because a link to the Sky News report with a friendly reminder to colleagues to check that their contributions have been paid correctly might be a worthwhile thing to do. You could even mention that in your case the company corrected their error when it was pointed out to them, so you just want to make sure it isn’t happening to anyone else,

I would add that I think would be protected disclosure as flagging unlawful acts - it’s either unlawful deduction from wages issue (if deducting employee contributions based on pre maternity pay) and/or failure to pay all the employer contributions for the period. Either would be breach of law. Maternity etc contribution errors are v common even with large companies. They should be sorted.

Report to TPR (your company doesn’t need to know it was you) and stand back.

You can also report them to the Pensions Regulator and Pensions Ombudsman if they're not applying the correction company wide:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-03-10/37062/#:~:text=Where%20employees%20themselves%20identify%20errors,TPO)%20or%20The%20Pensions%20Regulator.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-problems/what-to-do-if-my-employer-doesnt-pay-my-pension-contributions

I'd otherwise suggest a printout of either of the above mysteriously appearing on people's desks or on the staff noticeboard, but they'll know it's you.

I'd definitely mention it to anyone you know that is about to go on or has recently come back from maternity leave.

Otherwise all you can do is inform management and HR that they are currently in breach of the pensions regulations and are opening the company up to the risk of legal action from employees with a protected characteristic.

No, I'm an experienced employment lawyer and I know how the public interest test operates (e.g. Chesterton v Nurmohamed). You obviously don't have knowledge in this area so I'm correcting your inaccurate information for OP's benefit. Please don't give anyone else HR advice.

1 - I said I wasn't sure, nothing inaccurate about my comment. I did not give advice at any stage as if I was certain.

2 - your own wording on your post confirms you're not sure either

So, respectfully, we can both pipe down on the egotistical chest puffing as its not helpful to OP. The only place that will be with any certainty is Protect.

Report them to the Pensions Ombudsman

It wouldn’t be pulling the ladder up behind her. More like leaving the ladder for someone else to climb. But I agree if you feel like you want to be involved OP, do so

Good for you for fighting for your staff OP. The world of work would be vastly better if there were more people in it like you.

I'm relatively switched on, but little knowledge about such matters and I wouldn't have a clue if my pension contributions were correct at any time never mind whilst on maternity leave.

Regards the complaint, it's OK knowing you are correct, but can you prove it, easily, with examples?
Otherwise it goes over most people's head.

I hate knowing I'm.right and something is wrong but I've had to learn to rein it in BC otherwise I get ignored on important issues.