Year-end Procedures
At the end of a financial year there is certain information which is required by the pension administration team.
A list of all scheme member contributions for every one of an employer's contributing employees should be submitted. The pension administration team may send a schedule listing the relevant scheme members or the information can be sent electronically or via e-mail on an excel spreadsheet.
The contributions should be broken down into normal employee contributions and additional employee contributions. This is important as contributions will be used to calculate a pay figure which will in turn be used to calculate the benefits shown on an annual benefit statement.
Since 1 April 2008 if a scheme member has more than one post they must appear more than once on the year end return and the contributions relating to each post must be shown separately. Similarly, if a scheme member has had a change in employee contribution rate during the year, the effective date of the change and the contributions that relate to each rate that has been applied must be shown. It is also important to detail the contribution rate applied for each scheme member and, where they have more than one post, for each post.
From the year end listing a number of queries will inevitably arise. The most common discrepancies are where employees have either joined or left the LGPS in the last year and forms LGS15A or LGS15C (admissions or withdrawals) have not previously been completed by the employer.
Other queries that arise are where a scheme member's contributions have significantly increased or reduced from a previous year. Again, form LGS15B (or otherwise a method agreed between the employing authority and the scheme administrators) may not have been previously completed giving details of a change in hours, a break in service or a period of maternity leave for example.
Further information to be supplied will be that relating to variable-time employees. Average weekly hours worked throughout a year (1st April to 31st March) need to be notified to the scheme administrators so that they can update the membership history for such members. This is best supplied as a report in excel format which can be downloaded directly to the pensions administration system.
