North Lanarkshire Update

Low paid workers in North Lanarkshire are still waiting on vital pay information being passed from the Council to the Strathclyde Pension Fund (SPF) so that their pension entitlements can be recalculated.

This dispute involves so-called 'First Wave' claimants who are a different group from the one that has been appealed to Scottish Ministers. 

In essence all that needs to happen is that highly paid council officials in NLC get their fingers out, do their jobs properly and pass on pay data which should have been shared with the SPF months ago.

What a complete shower, if you ask me, but if they don't sit up and take notice of this letter from HBJ Gateley, I suspect that North Lanarkshire Council is in for a whole barrowload of trouble.

Dear Mr Aitken

EQUAL PAY CLAIMS V NORTH LANARKSHIRE COUNCIL

Complaint under the Local Government Pension Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2014

I refer to the above matter and the Council's notice of decision issued on 2 February 2016.

I write in relation to the first part of the decision in relation to the treatment for pension purposes of the Employment Tribunal Award made to our clients in June 2015.  You will be aware that the second part of the decision in relation to payments made under Settlement Agreements is now subject to an appeal to the Scottish Ministers.

In the notice of decision the Council accepts that the award of compensation made by the Employment Tribunal is pensionable (para 3) and that it requires pension contributions to be made (para 7).  The Council undertook at para 7 of the decision to provide the necessary data to Strathclyde Pension Fund:

"The Council will submit revised pay data or new data to SPF, as appropriate and confirm same to the Claimants' Employment Tribunal representatives."

Thus far, the Council has failed to take such steps to provide the necessary data to SPF ("the pay data obligation") with the result that the re-calculation of the claimants' pension entitlements cannot be carried out and our clients remain in a position of financial loss.  We have been advised by SPF that they are actively seeking the required information from the Council and have been doing so since at least December 2015.  However, we understand from SPF that they are still awaiting the necessary data from the Council.

We note that there is no time limit specified in your letter to perform the pay data obligation. It is trite law that where no express time limit is stated then the common law implies that an obligation will be carried out within a reasonable time. Our client considers 3 months to be a reasonable period of time to perform the pay data obligation, particularly given that the data has been outstanding since the settlement payments were made many months prior from May 2015. Accordingly our client now considers you to be in material breach of your undertaking to submit the revised pay data or new data to SPF. 

In light of your failure to comply with the pay data obligation, our client hereby calls upon you to fulfil your pay data obligation within the next 14 days. Your failure to do so will be founded upon in any proceedings to follow hereon. 

Our client reserves all its rights, including the right to commence proceedings against your client seeking orders plus interest and expenses. 

This letter is written entirely without prejudice to our client's whole rights and pleas in this matter and shall not be founded upon before a Court, Arbitrator or Tribunal without our client's express permission. 

I look forward to hearing from you as a matter of urgency.

Yours sincerely

Sarah Gilzean

Associate