Does the thought of end of year pensions work leave you feeling confused and anxious? Have no fear, Clare Skinner is here to offer up some practical advice to keep you on track this year
Ah, the end of the tax year arrives, and we breathe a sigh of relief – or is that, take a huge breath and prepare ourselves for all the work it involves?!
For some, the end of March not only signifies the end of a tax year in terms of preparing returns for HMRC – the end of a financial year in maintained schools – but it also signifies the end of the pension year and the time when we must submit our returns to both the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) and the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
For academies, that means preparing the TPS End of Year Certification (EoYC), submitting it to TPS and then getting the auditors on board to check you have done it correctly and submit an audited version. The deadlines look like this:
Unaudited EoYC back to TPS by the end of May each year
Audited EoYC back to TPS by the end of September each year
Managing timelines
I get in touch with my auditors in April to confirm that they can complete the work and agree a timetable to support my workload around budget forecast returns and year end audit preparation. As soon as the cash value email from TPS lands in my inbox (around the end of April), I prepare the spreadsheet using the data from my payroll reports and the guidance on the form and then, once happy, I sign it and upload it via the TPS website. Come June, I provide my audit team with relevant member prints and payroll reports to test the accuracy of my unaudited return and deal with any queries. This means that the bulk of the work can be done before the summer holidays leaving July & August free for audit/year end prep with September only involving a review of the EoYC with the audit team before their signed version is submitted for another year.
I’m not going into LGPS returns as they vary across counties and I don’t want to cause confusion, but most of them need to be done by the end of May as well so do liaise with your provider to get the returns done on time so they don’t impact on other deadlines looming in the summer term.
Secure futures
But why all this work? Well, first it is a matter of compliance, but possibly more importantly it is about our wellbeing. I don’t know about you, but the most common reason for me waking up at 3am sweating and worrying about work usually involves people, their pay and benefits. The TPS is a HUGE benefit for our employees with employee and employer contributions amounting to at least 36% of their annual salary and LGPS contributions are not far off that. It is a massive responsibility for us to get this right for them so that, after many years of educating the future generation (or supporting and enabling teachers to do so) teachers and support staff can sail off into the distance and really enjoy the retirement that they well and truly deserve.
The monthly pension returns support this and the annual returns verify it. This all means that we can rest easy and know that when any of our colleagues submits their retirement and pension application, they will access all their pension from day one without issue.
My advice
My final piece of advice around pensions (not about whether you should have one as I am not a regulated professional!) is relentlessly reminding colleagues to monitor and maintain them, essentially carrying out their own personal audit.
Keep reminding colleagues to check their pension service records on a regular basis. This way they can make sure that there are no gaps, any gaps are addressed urgently and most importantly so that they can plan that cruise around the Caribbean, that road trip across Europe or how they will spoil their families when they do escape from education!
P.S. Don’t forget that the end of the tax year also means self-assessment on a personal level, you can think about making a start on that now as well…
Be the first to comment