Pension contributions - what is deemed a diversion of income ?

@jgdad Did you ex told CMS you are diverting income via pension contributions?

@edpacket Hi, not sure on your point, diverting of income as we all know is contained in regulation 71 of the 2012 scheme, so full compliance with the express conditions that are detailed in this regulation, in itself, would not be a diverting of income, which is what I have done. I have complied with all the prerequisites of the regulation, in terms of FSA guidelines, percentage of final pension assumption for my salary. Contained within the Upper Tribunal ruling, I have also complied with the statements made by the judge, in relation to expected retirement age, based on medical history, I have also taken professional advice, again, as stated by the judge. I cannot see why I would inform the CMS that I was diverting income, when I am clearly not. I have met all the requirements for my age and expected retirement date. I have always paid between £600 and £750 per month, for over 12 years, such is the perverse nature of how the CMS see income, company car BIK etc, but never missed a single payment. My son is now 17 and his mother has openly alienated him from me for 2 years, again, the way the CMS works, it actually increased her weekly amount by circa £100. My son will still be receiving over £350 per month, not that he see's much of the cash, as with many NRP's, I only see the holidays, new cars and big house my ex has, whilst I have worked without holidays, as many NRP's have, to ensure that despite my own feelings, I never missed a single payment, as well as paying many hundreds of pounds extra when requested. At 55, I have no pension, so I am starting from nothing, which is the clear rationale behind the FSA's numbers they gave and the internal working processes of the CMS. I am ensuring that I have some sort of income when I retire, I am not taking money from my son, he will still receive a decent amount each month, I am simply making some meagre provision for my later life, when I hope my son will see what I have done over the years. 

@edpacket Sorry edpacket, that reply was not for you, mate it was for someone who sent me a rude PM, stating I was taking money from my son.

My ex has not informed them, but will and I will update for all when I have that fight

@jgdad Sorry you misunderstood. I was asking why you are going to court. If she reported you and under what clause. Not questioning your contributions in any way. I am the first to point to the 36020 paragraph regarding pension contributions as I have been contributing a sizable part of my income for years. 

@jgdad No worries. 

@edpacket Thanks mate, 

I do expect my ex to request a variation, but she has not yet

The CMS told me they have no issue with my payments, if I had other pensions or had been paying contributions earlier, they would have then questioned my contributions

So the ex, if she contacts them, I hope will get the same response, we have to be able to sort our own futures

Just to repeat an earlier comment that my ex went through all my financial papers so she knows what assets I have. Not that that is an issue because I have never ever hidden any wealth and am an honest open person. I never rifled through her private papers. 

Anyway, even though this is now in MR and FAO the Special Client Records team, I have this last day or so been drafting another letter to the FIU chap identifying where his latest reasoning - in my eyes - is either mistaken in fact or not compliant with their own rules / guidance (eg. what justification do you have for ignoring 36020, i.e. how does a drop of £3k in assessible income justify ignoring 36020 on grounds of my childrens welfare and increasing my assessible income by almost £10 ? Etc etc.) I am concerned here that the MR will base its view firstly on what the FIU say so I feel disadvantaged if the FIU have made mistakes.

Posted by: @Daddyup

Prior to any appeals, you may even want to do a S. A. R in relation to yourself so that you can get an idea of everything they took into consideration before making a decision and see if they took a sufficient amount of time, involved any experts etc

@Daddyup (also @edpacket @jgdad)

I've received the information from DWP in response to my S.A.R. It has copies of letters and also a lot of notes on my case (which are quite difficult to read and contain a lot of acronyms but some useful text).

However I have scrutinised all the information sent to me and it does not contain any info on letters or other communication that the CMS have had with any 3rd parties - it only has the letters between myself and the CMS. I KNOW the CMS has written to and received a response from my mortgage provider (to see if it was a repayment or interest only mortgage - which is of relevance to the notional income variation) as the mortgage provider has told me so themselves and are in fact sending me details of that comms as part of my SAR with them. I also know that the CMS have sought and received information from the funds platform where my ISAs are. However there is nothing at all about these comms in the SAR pack that DWP have sent me.

Would you know if this information should be in the SAR pack from the CMS ?

Hi

My understanding is that it should be. I reckon in the 1st instance they send you limited information to see what you do, id go back to them and challenge them and request a response from them in writing saying why they do not need to provide any more information. (try to be more specific about the type of information you believe they should have provided you, as they will need to respond to you quite specifically). You also want to ensure that their response is from the Data Protection Officer (if some junior employee, confirm with them that the DPO has signed it off, if not ask whether the matter can be escalated to them) Following on from this I would then seek advice and guidance from the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) about this and see what they say as they regulate the rules/legislation around Data Protection and complying with SAR etc..

As the DWP/CMS is a public body I imagine there will be exceptions etc and things they can redact etc all of which I'm sure the ICO can advise on (also ask the ICO whether they can intervene on your behalf and take up the matter with the DWP/CMS if they believe the SAR has not been complied with). ..

All the best. 

@Daddyup thanks for that.

Before reading your advice I did go back to them saying I needed the letters the FIU have sent to any 3rd parties, and not just the ones I knew about - any others that I may not be aware of. So they have now provided the lettesr sent out, but not the 3rd party replies - saying that they are not the Data Controller for those (however I am getting those replies from the 3rd parties themselves).

I have also asked for all information relating to the decision the FIU have made as there seems to be absolutely nothing in the pack about that. It turns out that the FIU information is not recorded in 'the system' which they use for the personal data they send out in response to a SAR. I said that I thought it was a matter of law that they needed to provide all the information held within the DWP (or CMS) as a whole.

Anyway I have asked for this missing information especially on how the FIU came to the decsiions they did - i.e. what information did they use in coming to their decision, what reference was made (if any) to the guidelines for dealing with variations here :- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1012626/volume-3-variations.pdf

I also said I wanted to see any info on myself that my ex- may have contributed - reasoning that it was still my oersonal information. Not sure how that will go or if I am entitled to see that though. However I reckon I have a right to see it - eg. if my ex- has told them anything that I disagree with for example.

@Will99 not sure if this is wholely relevant, as it's only for automated decision making, but it might be useful (I also suspect you've probably seen it before, but just in case...)

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/rights-related-to-automated-decision-making-including-profiling/

@Will99 Hi fellow sufferer, how did you get on with this, they are playing games with me on my contributions, I have put forward exactly the same response in relation to pension payments, couldnt make it up, keep fighting mate