Leaver Forms

Please do not email any leaver forms to us as we are no longer able to accept leavers information via this method. As explained in the guidance on our website, you must use Employer Self Service (ESS) to notify us of any members leaving, opting-out and retiring from the Local Government Pension Scheme. As you have direct access, the leaver form is instantly attached to the member’s record. If you are experiencing difficulties with ESS, full guidance can be found at Employer Self-Service - Peninsula Pensions to help you with processes or you can email the Employer & Communications Team with a specific enquiry: pensinulaemployers@devon.gov.uk

IMPORTANT - Pension Fund Triennial Valuation 2022

As 2022 is a Valuation year it is ever more important that we receive your Annual Return data as soon as possible, in order that we can capture all your member information and ensure we meet the actuarial deadline.

Please ensure your data is submitted to our Annual Return mailbox (pensionsannualreturns-mailbox@devon.gov.uk) by 14^th April 2022.

The provisional Annual Return template for 2021/22 is on our website and remains unchanged from last year. We’ll issue the final version in March so that it includes all the relevant employer contact details at that point:

Please familiarise yourselves with the content and if you have any questions regarding the data requested, the format or the deadline, please email Jane Aplin (jane.j.aplin@devon.gov.uk)

If it would be helpful to do any testing or trial a sample of data in advance please contact Jane and we can support you with any questions or concerns you may have, to ensure the process runs smoothly in April.

Helpful reminders:

• One line of data for each member employment/pension record
• Casual employments – please include all casual employees who are in the pension scheme, regardless of whether they paid any contributions in 2021/22; this applies to all 3 tabs. This is important as we need to know if the member is still active on your payroll, even if they didn’t claim in this financial year, so we don’t treat them as a leaver.
• FTE salary at 31/03/2022 – please bear in mind the difference between Devon and Somerset for term-time employees.
• CARE Pay – one line of data for each employment (including casual employments whether they were paid or not); this is the actual pensionable pay and Assumed Pensionable pay received in respect of each employment.

Important communication for your staff

Each year the Devon Pension Fund holds an 'Annual Staff and Retired Members Consultative Meeting' as a forum to give pension fund members updates on how their pension fund is managed. The year’s event is to be hold on 25th February 2022 2:15pm. We would ask you as an employer to help us publicise this event to your staff. We would be grateful if you could circulate the following communication:

The Devon Pension Fund holds an Annual Consultative Meeting for pension fund members each February. The meeting will provide updates on the latest news on the Local Government Pension Scheme, the Fund’s investments, and the administration of benefits, and provides the opportunity for pension fund members to ask questions. Members will be able to join the meeting on-line. However it is hoped to allow a small number of members to attend in person at County Hall, subject to social distancing constraints. If you wish to attend in person, please contact Gerry.rufolo@devon.gov.uk. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. More details can be found at: Annual Consultative Meeting - Devon Pension Fund

To join the meeting on-line please click on the following link. This will take you into the meeting, and give you access to a Q&A panel where you can type in any questions you wish to ask. Join Teams Meeting here.

In addition, Devon County Council’s policy is to allow staff to attend the meeting or watch the webcast as part of their working day. We would be grateful if you could consider doing the same and, if you are happy to do so, to make your staff aware.

We need your help

The Disclosure Regulations regarding retirements require us to provide benefit information to members who are at State Pension Age (SPA) within 1 month of their leaving date, for those retiring before SPA it is 2 months from leaving date.

This means that if a person retires at their SPA of 3^rd January 2022 we should provide information to them by 2^nd February 2022. A lot of employers complete the leavers forms on completion of their monthly payrun which is completed around the 25^th of the month you will see in this example that does not give us a lot of time to meet the disclosure regulation timescales.

We would ask you to revisit your leaver process for retirees to help us meet the deadlines.

More details on timescales can be found in the Devon Pension Fund Administration Strategy, and Somerset Pension Fund Administration Strategy.

Apology

We wish to apologise for the issues some employers encountered with ESS recently. We have been working with Aquila Heywood and understand the system issues have been rectified.

 If you are still experiencing issues with ESS please email the Employer and Communication team so we can investigate further.    

Changes to Pensions Benefits Mailbox

Please be aware that the Pensionsbenefitssecure-mailbox@devon.gov.uk will be terminated on 28^th February 2022 and from 1^st March 2022 you will have to send all correspondence to Devonpensionsservices-mailbox@devon.gov.uk.

Employer Self Services (ESS) Work Activities

If a leaver form has been rejected and a work activity has been assigned to you, please remember to complete the work activity. Once you have uploaded a revised leaver form to the members record, go back into the relevant work activity, select New Entry, confirm a new form has been uploaded and press Save – this will update the work activity to ‘In Progress’. You will need to go back in and press ‘Save’ again to complete the activity. For help with work activities, please see the guidance on our website.

Employer PLOG 2022

As you know we usually hold our annual Employer PLOG in January but have decided to delay it until April/May whilst we await some legislation updates and complete the Data Quality Exercise.

In the meantime, we would be grateful if you could complete this quick questionnaire to help us decide how we run the meetings this year.

New FAQ page on website

A new FAQ’s page has been added to the website which has sub-pages for Contributing members, Deferred members, MSS, Retirement, Transfers & Miscellaneous.

Keep us updated

Please remember to keep us updated with any changes in staff responsible for completing our forms (authorised signatories). This can be done by completing our online form.

You can also use this form to notify us of your IDRP Stage 1 Appeals Officer, your Payroll Provider, your contact for Interfaces and to sign up to our employer newsletter Pensions Line

It is important that you contact the Employer & Communications Team if you are changing your payroll provider. We can then work with you to ensure you put processes in place to retain access to historical payroll information and continue to fulfil your responsibilities as a Scheme employer.

Payment of Pension Fund Contributions

Please remember to inform us and the relevant Finance team each time you have paid your pension scheme contributions, by filling in the Monthly Contributions Form. The form should be submitted the same day as the payment. This avoids unnecessary allocation delays and satisfies Government Actuary Department requirements.

Please ensure that you build this form into your procedures.

If you are a Somerset Pension Fund employer, please contact the Corporate Finance Team for a copy of the Monthly Contribution Return: Corporatefinancepens@somerset.gov.uk

If you are a Devon Pension Fund Employer, you will need to use the online EAS5 form. 

TUPEs & New Academies

If you are outsourcing services and have a number of staff who will be subject to TUPE and moving to a new employer or your school is converting to an Academy or moving MAT, you will need to consider obligations regarding the affected employees’ pension rights. Please do not submit any leaver forms as this will complicate the process – for more information on what you need to do, please visit the TUPE and Admitted Bodies page on our website.

Contacts

Employer & Communications Team

Quick links

Employer Services (ESS) Guide

Peninsula Pensions Employers' Pages

Peninsula Pensions Employers' Guide

LGPS regulations and guidance

Fund Investments

LGPS National Website

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