'I'm on wild goose chase to find missing pension'

A retired civil servant has demanded answers over his missing pension after learning a disc containing information about his membership of a scheme was destroyed.

Ian Stocks, from Sheffield, worked for South Yorkshire County Council for five years at the start of his career, before the authority was dissolved in 1986.

But when the 62-year-old retired in 2018, he was initially told by the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority (SYPA) there was no record of his time working there, before he produced old copies of his P60 to prove that he had.

SYPA said it had since made a settlement offer to Stocks, which he has rejected because he believes it significantly undervalued what he would have accrued.

Stocks, whose story was first covered by The Sheffield Tribune last year, told the BBC: "It's been an eight-year wild goose chase to find out where my pension has gone, when I should have been enjoying my retirement.

"It's always there in the background. I enjoy an active life outdoors, cycling, walking and running, but it keeps coming back.

"There's always lots of emails and information to process."

In a ruling in 2022, the Pensions Ombudsman said Stocks could claim a refund of his own personal contributions to his pension pot from when he worked at the county council between 1981 and 1986, plus £500 in compensation.

He has since been offered a payout of just under £8,000 by the SYPA, but Stocks said this was "dramatically undervaluing" what he believed he was due, mainly because it did not include employer contributions.

In 2024, an internal email sent to him as part of a Freedom of Information (FOI) response revealed SYPA had "destroyed" the data belonging to previous members of the same pension scheme.

It read: "Andy did say members with no liability before 99/00 were archived off and records were stored on a disc, however we no longer have the disc.

"It wasn't compatible with our systems and we were unable to read the data so it was destroyed."

The email added: "Not sure where go from here? I know you mentioned recreating the records?"

As a result, Stocks, who later worked for the Civil Service as a photographer, said he believed other people who worked for the county council around the same time he did may also have missed out.

"It's frankly flabbergasting.

"As far as I'm aware no-one else has come forward but I find it impossible to believe other people aren't affected."

SYPA director Gillian Taberner said: "Whilst the Authority does not comment on individual cases which involve the personal financial circumstances of current or former scheme members, we can only note that this particular case has already been determined by the Pensions Ombudsman and that SYPA has proposed a settlement which goes further than the Ombudsman's recommendation."

She added: "I can confirm that in 2017 a decision was made to securely dispose of an archive containing only data relating to former scheme members who had left the scheme before 1999 and had no further entitlement to benefits from the fund."

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