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Earlier this month, we held our employer meetings at two locations: Coaver Club in Exeter for our Devon employers, and Somerset Cricket Club for our Somerset employers. All meetings were accessible both in person and online.
We experienced a high turnout for both events online, while in-person attendance was smaller. This led us to question the necessity of hosting future events in person. However, feedback from some employers emphasized the importance of maintaining in-person events, we will give this careful consideration for future events.
Our talks included a Peninsula Pensions and employer performance update, an update about our employer and communication team, an introduction to our member services team, employer responsibilities, a McCloud update, plus a talk from Karen Jamieson at Barnett Waddingham for an introduction to the fund and 2025 valuation.
All presentations and slides are available on our website, or if you attended the event and would like to leave feedback, please fill in our survey. We are currently working through the feedback and will provide responses to those who made a request.
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Following the announcement that the Local Government Services National Joint Council (NJC) 2024/25 pay award has been agreed and back dated to 1 April 2024, any members who have left or retired since 1 April 2024 will need their benefits to be re-calculated on the revised pensionable pay.
If you have a policy to award the backpay to leavers, you will need to provide us with a revised leaver form for each affected member.
Please do not add these members to the leavers spreadsheet again as this will complicate our processes. Instead we ask that you follow the process on our website
Backdated pay award FAQs updated
The Local Government Association (LGA) have published new versions of the employer FAQs on backdated pay awards (version 1.1). A new question has been added after receiving a number of queries about whether assumed pensionable pay (APP) should be re-calculated when a member later receives a backdated pay award. The FAQs confirm that APP for a current or past reduced/nil pay period should not be re-calculated when the member receives backdated pay. You can find the employer FAQs on the: • Guides and sample documents (lgpsregs.org)
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When we changed the leavers spreadsheet back in March, we asked that you provide the LGPS 2008 Final Salary Pay for all members and percentage of hours at the date of leaving except when the reason for leaving is ‘Leaver under 2 years membership’.
The FTE Hours and FTE Salary 365 days fields are only mandatory if the Date of Birth stated is before 01.04.1998. (Anyone born after that date, will have only been 16 on 01.04.2014 so will not have any pre-April 2014 (final salary) membership).
This also applies to ALL casual leavers with more than 2 years membership so please provide the percentage of hours for those employee’s too, based on the average of the weekly hours – see our website for guidance. In the cases where the hours have not been confirmed, we will need to assume the member was on minimum wage the last year of employment.
Payment of invoices - please could you quote the invoice reference as your bank reference when making invoice payments. This will assist automatic allocations when the income management system goes live.
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From April 2028 NMPA is increasing to age 57 from age 55 – therefore the LGPS regulations will be changed to reflect this. This will apply to all new members from 4th November 2021.
Protection for existing members of the scheme before 4th November 2021 could be introduced and we are waiting for an update from the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities (DLUHC) as to whether such a protection will be introduced. This could mean these members would retain the right to retire from age 55. It could also be possible, but highly unlikely, for a policy to be applied across all public sector schemes.
We must be mindful of the fact that when NMPA changed from 50 to 55 there were no protections introduced in the LGPS, but this might not be the case this time. We will keep you informed as we hear more information.
Please check our website for more details and updates as we get them.
LGA have confirmed that they meet regularly with representatives from MHCLG, the Department for Education and Capita to discuss the operation of the McCloud remedy for teachers with excess service. You can read more about how the remedy will apply to these members in Bulletin 229.
The early stages of the process involve Teachers’ Pensions (TP) identifying members in scope and verifying their excess service with employers. The next step of the process will involve LGPS administering authorities to contact employers that have not yet verified the data supplied and gather the data they need to set up an LGPS record for members in scope from employers. Please see our website for more details.
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Our office will be closed from 12pm on Tuesday 24th December until Thursday 2nd January 2025, phone lines will re-open at the usual time of 8.30am.
Please give us time to process your retirement leavers and requests for information before we break for the festive season.
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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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