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As you are aware providing pension information to enable the calculation of benefits is the responsibility of the employer and should make up part of your monthly practices. As set out within the Pension Administration Strategy provision of information should be within certain timescales to allow benefit details to be issued to our members in line with statutory timescales.
Each month the Employer & Communication Team spend time emailing employers with details of outstanding cases. We are pleased to report that in the last 12 months the amount outstanding has reduced by 25%, however there are still a large number outstanding which in turn means a large number of members are not receiving their information in a timely manner.
Following a recent review of the internal process we are introducing some changes. You will now receive one email detailing all outstanding cases or work activities together with a specified timescale to resolve the queries and enable Peninsula Pensions to process members benefits.
If cases are not resolved within the specified timescale and we are unable to fulfil our legislative obligations, we will send a letter to the member to explain the reason for the delay is because we are waiting for information from their employer.
Your Fund’s Pension Administration Strategy (PAS) sets out the expected timescales to enable us to adhere to The Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2013. These regulations set out strict timeframes for the provision of pension information:
Devon Fund: Devon Pension Fund Administration Strategy - Peninsula Pensions
Somerset Fund: Somerset Pension Fund Administration Strategy - Peninsula Pensions
Where these timeframes are exceeded, we are also legally required to record these cases on our breaches register, providing an explanation as to why a breach has occurred. The breaches register is reviewed regularly by Senior Officers at Peninsula Pensions and is presented at least annually to the Devon and Somerset Pension Boards. Depending on the severity or frequency of a breach, it may result in a referral to The Pensions Regulator (TPR).
TPR has the authority to impose a maximum fine of £5,000 for an individual case and up to £50,000 in other cases, to either the scheme administrator or employer, following an assessment of any breach. Our breaches register records employer breaches separately to ensure clarity in this respect. Therefore, it is in the best interests of Peninsula Pensions, the Scheme Employer and ultimately the Scheme Member that we work together to ensure the timely and accurate communication of information.
We also feel we need to point out that if the records are not up to date when we provide the data to the fund actuaries for the fund valuation, it could affect the employer’s contribution rate that you will have to pay.
We are of course here to help employers. If you require support with understanding your responsibilities, have issues with resources, change of payroll system or payroll provider please don’t hesitate to contact us. We also have videos and guides on our website to help you. We want to work with you for the benefit of our scheme members and your former employee’s so that pension benefits can be finalised and paid within the statutory guidelines.
Please remember to check Employer Self Service (ESS) for any work activities assigned to yourselves as a result of rejected leaver forms and action accordingly, update the comments and complete the Work Activity so that we know you have dealt with our request.
To complete the work activity from ‘In Progress’, you will need to go back into the relevant work activity and press ‘Save’ again to complete it. If it’s showing as ‘assigned’ you will need to press save then go back in and press save again to complete it. There is some guidance and a video on our website to help you with this process.
Access to amend records may have been suspended so if you do need to amend anything within ESS before submitting a revised leaver form, let the Employer and Communications team know so that they can re-open the record for you.
Please note that the Work Activities facility should not be used to send us a message about a case or add any additional comments to a submitted form – if a work activity has been created, we expect a revised leaver form to be uploaded or the Member Update of hours to be done. The comments provided within the work activities do not feed back into the members record. Therefore, if you need to let us know that something needs to be changed, please add some notes to the revised leaver form you submit.
Do you receive work activities stating the ESS leaver form is blank? If so, there is an alternative leaver process for employers who do not currently download and re-upload the leaver form on the same day. A template form is available to be used internally at your end to complete and arrange for checking/sign off ahead of uploading to ESS. Then when the leaver form is ready to be made live on ESS, the alternative leaver form is created so that you can copy and paste the details from yours to the ESS version. If you think this process might work better for you, please contact Emma Davies who will provide more details.
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