We have made some changes to the Leavers spreadsheet:
- Pension Contributions – Previous financial year and previous years employee contributions are now mandatory if Leaver under 2 years membership is selected for the reason for leaving
- LGPS 2014 CARE Pay – we are now asking you to provide ‘Dates for CARE pay for final year’ instead of financial years
- There is no longer a requirement to provide the previous years CARE pay as this should be provided on your monthly CARE pay interface.
- Variable/Casual Employee –‘Total actual pensionable pay received in the final year (from 1st April to the date of leaving’ and Total actual pensionable pay received in the previous year (from 1st April to 31st March) are now mandatory when Variable/Casual employee is selected.
- Other columns requesting total pay and average hours have been removed.
- LGPS 2008 Final Salary Pay:
- We are now asking you to confirm the effective date of the hours worked at date of leaving
- Additional question inserted: ’Have you been the payroll provider for the full 365 days?’ to help reduce follow on queries requesting part year coming back to you instead of the previous employer/payroll provider
- Additional question inserted: Are you providing previous years pensionable pay figures? – if yes is selected the previous 2 years remuneration fields will be mandatory
- The mandatory question ‘Do they have membership prior to 1st April 2014?’ has been re-instated as this helps us when processing the leavers spreadsheet. If N/No is stated, we still require this figure to be provided for all members (except when ‘Leaver under 2 years membership’ or Opted Out where less than 3 months and refunded via payroll is selected). Please note that for Opt Out’s with 2 or more years membership, you will need to provide the last 365 days final salary pay**
- To note: if Opted Out is selected and N for refunded via payroll, the Final salary fields will appear mandatory but if the member does not have 2 or more years membership, this figure is not required. N/A can be entered into the dates and zero values added for the hours and pay figures as a workaround.
- Additional disclaimer added: ‘By submitting this data, the above-named individual (on behalf of the named employer), confirms that the enclosed data has been checked and verified as accurate’. If more than one person at employer completes this, they will be declaring on behalf of all.
The reason we are requesting the last 365 days Pensionable Pay (LGPS 2008 Final Salary Pay) in all cases is because over the last year we have trialled not having this figure provided and monitored the impact on the pension calculations.
We have found that as well as impacting those who leave LG employment, those moving to new roles within LG have suffered delays in the amalgamations of previous pension records and transfers between LGPS funds. It is estimated that overall this has caused unnecessary delays on at least 50% of cases and subsequently, processing scheme members benefits. This is not only impacting on day to day calculations, but also with regards to information needed around the McCloud remedy.
**Although we are asking you to provide the Final Salary figure in all cases, this field will only become 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 2014 membership.
We will start sending out the new version to all employers after the Easter holiday using the contacts we hold within the sign off sheet on the current Leavers Spreadsheet.
Please contact the Employer & Communications Team if you have any questions or concerns.