High-tech firm’s low blow over my pension savings
T.W. writes: I am requesting your help to investigate a business called Pupil. After leaving the company in 2023, I looked to move my pension savings to my new employer’s scheme. However, People’s Partnership – the pension scheme used by Pupil – informed me that the contributions deducted from my pay had not been passed on by Pupil. I have since found that other employees and former employees are in the same boat.
PUPIL is no hole-in-the-corner company. It is an international high-tech business, formally registered as the Digital Reality Corp Limited, offering highly detailed computer images of buildings. Its financial backers include the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estates, whose officials confirmed this but added that ‘we do not have involvement in the day-to-day activities of the business.’
So what went so badly wrong that you were able to give me a whole stream of payslips showing monthly pension contributions running into hundreds of pounds, yet the pension company received nothing?
People’s Partnership told you: ‘By law, when employers take pension contributions from your wages, your employer must pay those to your pension provider by the 22nd of the following month.’ But this didn’t happen. And a member of Pupil’s HR department told you last September: ‘It is my understanding that pension contributions are getting cleared this month.’ But this didn’t happen either. By the time you contacted me, things had escalated. The pension company told me it had reported Pupil to the watchdog Pension Regulator. It added: ‘We have also liaised directly with the employer in question to take the appropriate steps to ensure that their obligations are met.’
It took a while to get a reaction from Pupil. It finally told me: ‘We are happy to report that we secured new funding last week; hence the company will be in a position to bring its financial commitments up to date.’
The only conclusion I could draw was that Pupil was so low in funds that it was living at least partly off its own employees’ pension contributions. Money that was not Pupil’s to spend. There was also the matter of commission payments you had expected to receive after winning business for Pupil.
I pressed Pupil and it explained that when an employee leaves the company, outstanding commission payments are made ‘one month following the month of departure’. It added: ‘The client’s payment arrived after the one-month period.’
In effect, staff can win business for Pupil but there is no guarantee that their commission will be paid. This is in the hands of Pupil’s new client. If they do not pay Pupil promptly, the employee can lose any commission, meaning Pupil keeps the extra cash. This is so unfair. Was it really true? Yes, said Pupil, that is our policy.
As for the pension contributions, Pupil made a downpayment to the People’s Partnership. It asked me for time to pay up in full before The Mail on Sunday published this, and a week ago the pension firm told me: ‘We have worked very closely with the company in question to resolve the issue.’
But some of your missing contributions date back to January last year, so it has taken about 15 months for that money to be handed over.
Having to go to its backers to find the cash that it ‘borrowed’ from its own employees without their knowledge speaks volumes about Pupil’s own image. It is not a pretty sight.