Teachers pension scheme McCloud remedy and the LGPS
As part of the Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) McCloud remedy, all eligible members who were in the TPS reformed scheme will initially be rolled back into the TPS legacy scheme for the remedy period. The remedy period in the TPS runs from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022.
When a member takes payment of their pension, they will decide if they want to take the benefits built up in the remedy period as either legacy or reformed benefits. This is called the Deferred Choice Underpin (DCU). If a member has already taken payment of their pension, they will be given an immediate choice as soon as possible after 1 October 2023. Because reformed scheme benefits are initially being rolled back into the legacy scheme, any additional part time employments will retrospectively change from being pensionable under the TPS CARE scheme to pensionable in the LGPS for the remedy period. Members who meet the LGPS qualifying criteria will receive underpin protection in the LGPS.
Teachers who remain in (or restart) employment after 31 March 2022 will have the opportunity to transfer the membership from the LGPS to the TPS. Where a teacher keeps their excess teacher service in the LGPS and subsequently makes their choice on whether to have reformed or legacy scheme benefits for their main TPS record, this decision will not affect their LGPS membership for the remedy period. The LGPS will remain the member’s appropriate scheme for their excess teacher service for the remedy period.
More details and background information can be found in the LGPC Bulletin 229 – September 2022
Process update
The Local Government Association (LGA) have confirmed that although they have made significant progress, there are still some final details to iron out so are not quite ready to go on the full guidance yet. You can read a brief summary of the process on the Managing LGPS linked excess service page of the TPS website. Some employers will have completed step 4 and are ready to move onto step 5 – providing the data administering authorities will need to set up LGPS records for members in scope.
They have told us that we will have broadly two main responsibilities:
- Collecting the data they need from employers to set up records including CARE and final salary membership for these members
- Requesting payment of employer and employee contributions from the TPS.
TPS are in the process of finalising an excel spreadsheet to use for 2. LGA recommend that we use the same spreadsheet to get information from employers under 1 which does mean that we can’t yet move forward on collecting the data, but LGA think that the delay is worth it to avoid having to move data from one spreadsheet or system to another and re-order and re-format it.
Read more about the update in LGPC Bulletin 256 and we will add more updates when received on this page.
Pension Attention
Please see our 2024 Pension Attention campaign.