Turn off display after x minutes but dont lock (GPO)

Question

Hi,

I have problem where I cannot fine tune the GPO settings so that I can get what I want.

I want the following:

1. All Client machines to have a screensaver timeout after 15min.
2. Some users have to exempt from this rule.
3. After the display turns off (there is no point having the burn in effect or from ecological side to have them on) for certain users - they should NOT get the lock screen. The users which are exempt are mostly working in VM machines and only sometime on actuall laptops.

I already have a separate GPO on the user side which has only three settings:

Enable screen saver Enabled

Password protect the screen saver Enabled

Screen saver timeout Enabled

Number of seconds to wait to enable the screen saver

Seconds: 900

And this used to work, but I do not know what changed. I have a power settings plan in a general client GPO which looks like this:

The "turn off display after" setting is "killing" me because I do want the screens to turn off for 95% of the people working in the company, but then the exception for couple of users does not work, because after the displays have tuned off I have a lock screen and have to logon.

What would be my options for accomplishing this?

Cheers