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You will be aware that as a scheme employer, you are responsible for providing us with information concerning the membership of your employees and for the provision of certain communications to them.
It is important to understand why we are making these data requests, and why it is best practice, and your responsibility, to comply with them. Ultimately this is about ensuring:
- That the scheme members (your LGPS eligible employees) receive clear and accurate information about their future benefit entitlement via their personal benefit statement (there is a regulatory duty on administering authorities to provide these statements by the end of August each year)
- That Peninsula Pensions has sufficient information to pay those benefits on time when they fall due – there are statutory timescales relating to these that must be adhered to
- That the cost of providing those benefits, by way of your employer contributions, is accurate – the triennial valuations determining these costs will be affected should the data provided be missing/inaccurate
We do acknowledge that pensions administration is a small part of your daily duties - it is however essential for the provision of the above, and a responsibility that you have as an employer participating in the LGPS.
Think of it as a continuation of your former employee’s payment package. If you didn’t pay them, they wouldn’t be able to pay their bills. It is the same for their pension. We both need to work together to make sure that your employees / our retiring scheme members, receive a continuation of their income and the service they deserve. The same goes for members who leave before retirement age, they have the right to receive their benefits when they are entitled to them, and within the statutory timescales, so that they can plan their future finances.
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Administering authorities do have the power to recover their costs by levying fines where employers do not comply with certain data requests within agreed timescales. The responsibility to comply with these requests remains with you as the employer if you outsource any part of your LGPS-related administration to a third party. We use our discretion to allow direct contact with your delegated payroll, but this will be removed if we continue to experience a lack of engagement with your payroll provider and queries will be sent direct to you. It is also important that you put processes in place to retain access to historical payroll information when you change payroll provider so that you can continue to fulfil your responsibilities as a Scheme employer.
Our preference of course is to work with employers to avoid the above scenario. We do, however, feel it is important to remind you, that when an employer continues to not comply with provision of data within the timescales required, that this route will be followed. As we are certain you will understand, the LGPS Funds cannot be responsible for paying fines that have occurred due to non-compliance of an individual employer.
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We need you to keep us informed, monthly as a minimum, of new members and any changes we need to make to our pension records for all your employees that are contributing to the LGPS as follows:
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- Interface Templates: to include new starters, hour changes, address changes, and service breaks. Please email the Pensions Interfaces mailbox for a copy of the template.
- CARE Template: A monthly submission showing cumulative CARE (actual pensionable pay) for a given year.
- Leaver’s spreadsheet: you will need to use the spreadsheet to notify us of every leaver for each month.
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As confirmed in Employer Duties page on our website, we need to be made aware of any pensionable employees who leave or have chosen to opt out of the Local Government Pension Scheme by completing our leavers spreadsheet.
At present, we generate a report monthly to identify any forms that we have not received from an employer, plus any outstanding queries, and then issue you with a list for you to work through and provide the required information within a specified timescale. As this should be an automatic submission, this is not a process that we as administrators should need to continue.
As part of our obligations, we do write to the members / your former employees, to notify them that there will be a delay in processing their benefits whilst we wait for information to be submitted by their former employer.
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We need you to ensure that prompt payment of the employer and employee pension fund contributions each month are made to Peninsula Pensions. You will need to inform us and the Finance team each time you have made a payment.
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Timely submission of data is even more important with the impending changes to regulations as a result of the McCloud Judgement, the statutory requirement for accurate data ready for Pensions Dashboards, and members being able to view their pension records on our online portal Member Self Service.
If the expected statutory timeframes have been exceeded, we are legally required to record all cases on our breaches register, providing an explanation as to why a breach has occurred. The breaches register is reviewed regularly by Senior Managers 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 need to be reported to The Pensions Regulator (TPR). The timeframes can be found within the Pension Administration Strategy (PAS):
Devon Pension Fund Administration Strategy
Somerset Pension Fund Administration Strategy
The Pensions Regulator 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. As said above, 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 provision of information.
As administrators our priority is to pay the correct amount of pension benefit(s), to the right person, at the right time. To do this, we rely on you to provide accurate data for all your contributing employees, in a timely manner as outlined in the Pension Admin Strategy, to enable us to adhere to the statutory timescales.
Please note:
If you are struggling with resources or require help to understand what you need to do, please do contact our Employer & Communications Team who are always happy to help you.
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Keep us updated with any changes in staff responsible for completing our forms (authorised signatories). This can be done by completing our online form.
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.
If you are changing your Payroll Provider, please contact the Employer & Communications Team so that we can help you through the process and make sure you retain access to historical payroll information.
TUPEs & New Academies - Please do not complete the leaver spreadsheet if members are leaving your employment and transferring to another employer under TUPE. Follow the process outlined on our website instead.
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Peninsula Pensions
Great Moor House
Bittern Road
Sowton Industrial Estate
Exeter EX2 7NL
Tel: 01392 383200
Peninsula Pensions is provided by Devon County Council and is a shared service with Somerset Council |
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