Employer Focus - February 2020
This bulletin from the Staffordshire Pension Fund, focuses on current issues that you should be aware of relating to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
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Important notice to employer payroll sections and payroll service providers Back to top
Monthly contributions - change in process
As you will be aware Staffordshire Pension Fund's current LGPS pension contributions collection process requires that payment of employee and employer contributions should reach the Fund’s bank account by no later than 22nd of the following month after your organisation's payroll run.
This is then supported by a breakdown of the payment, supplied on our CTR1 notification form (remittance advice), which to date has been sent to the Pension Fund 'employers inbox'.
Monthly contribution payments can only be added to your organisation's asset share within the Fund once the payment made has been reconciled to the appropriate CTR1 notification form. Therefore, early posting of contributions to the Fund's accounting systems is essential to avoid any potential investment loss.
Pension Services and Staffordshire County Council's Income Section, who process payments received on behalf of the Pension Fund have experienced difficulty with some employer CTR forms and have not been able to reconcile and post contributions without making further enquiries. As a result, we are now making some changes to the data collection process.
New process
A link to a new simplified version of the CTR1 form is provided below. We hope this will be easier for you to complete.
To identify and allocate your payment the CTR1 form must include:
- your organisation's name
- your unique employer code (allocated by the Pension Fund)
- the monthly period to which the contributions relate
The payment amount should exactly match the reported amount on form CTR1.
In addition, the reference on your BACS payments should be the organisation's unique employer code (as per the CTR1 form).
In order that forms CTR1 can be processed at the earliest opportunity in future, the return should be emailed to our new inbox:
Please ensure that you completed CTR1 is submitted to the email address above within three days of the payment date.
Please note: any information sent to this inbox will automatically be shared with Staffordshire County Council's Income Section. In view of this please do not send any confidential scheme member related information e. g. termination forms or any other type of routine correspondence to this address. Please continue to use our existing employers' inbox for this type of communication.
As you will be aware interest and sanction charges apply in the case of late receipt of contributions, please see the our administration strategy for further details.
LGPS contribution banding from 1 April 2020 Back to top
The table below sets out the draft contribution bands, which will be effective from 1 April 2020. These are based on the pay bands for 2019/20, as increased by the September 2019 CPI figure of 1.7%, with the result rounded down to the nearest £100.
Please ensure your HR and payroll teams take the necessary action to implement the changes below with effect from 1 April 2020.
Draft employee contribution rates 2020/21
| Band | Main scheme | 50/50 section |
|---|
| Up to £14,600.00 |
5.50% |
2.75% |
| £14,601.00 - £22,800.00 |
5.80% |
2.90% |
| £22,801.00 - £37,100.00 |
6.50% |
3.25% |
| £37,101.00 - £46,900.00 |
6.80% |
3.40% |
| £46,901.00 - £65,600.00 |
8.50% |
4.25% |
| £65,601.00 - £93,000.00 |
9.90% |
4.95% |
| £93,001.00 - £109,500.00 |
10.50% |
5.25% |
| £109,501.00 - £164,200.00 |
11.40% |
5.70% |
| £164,201.00 or more |
12.50% |
6.25% |
The Fund will contact all employers in a future newsletter to inform them when central government have confirmed the contribution rates. We will also publish them on our website.
We cannot confirm these figures until we are notified by the government in a written ministerial statement confirming the Pensions Increase (Review) Order 2020 and the Public Service Pensions Revaluation Order 2020.
Fund's website - accessibility Back to top
The recently introduced legislation, Public Sector Bodies (Website and Mobile) (No 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, covers a wide range of recommendations for making website content more accessible. Whilst these recommendations will make content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities they do not address every user need for people with disabilities.
The guidelines address accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. The guidelines will also help to make our website content more user-friendly generally.
The Fund's website has been updated with our accessibility statement which sets out any areas of non-compliance and what we are doing to improve accessibility.
Employer guide to automatic / re-enrolment into the LGPS Back to top
In recent months, several employers have contacted the Fund regarding automatic enrolment and re-enrolment of employees into the LGPS.
To assist employers, the Fund's website has a section which contains the Local Government Associations (LGA) technical guide for scheme employers.
The guide sets out what employers are required to do to comply with auto or reenrolment. The guide is split into sections including, contractual enrolment, safeguards, assessing your workforce, communication with workforce, sample letters, record keeping, ongoing duties for employers.
The Fund's website also provides a document detailing our scheme reference numbers for contracting out, tax reference and scheme registration.
You can access all the information on our automatic enrolment page.
Vacancies for employer representatives on the pension committee Back to top
Staffordshire County Council is legally responsible for the Staffordshire Pension Fund. Managing the Fund's affairs effectively is one of our main aims and under the County Council’s constitution, the Pensions Committee are delegated to look after the affairs of the Fund.
As well as nine elected council members, the Pensions Committee also has co-opted members. The co-opted members cannot vote at meetings but play the valuable role of representing the views from organisations that have members within the Fund.
As a co-opted member of the Pensions Committee, you would be expected to attend meetings, which are held on a quarterly basis, and potentially deal with queries received from employers within your sector, who would like their views represented at the Pensions Committee. During the year training sessions are also arranged for committee members, which you would be expected to attend.
We are currently looking for representatives from the education sector, admitted bodies sector and some of our public bodies.
If you feel you would be interested in taking up this role, please e-mail the Fund’s Communication Officer: martin.griffiths@staffordshire.gov.uk
The closing date for registering your interest is 30 April 2020.
If you require any further information or clarification, please do not hesitate to get in touch: