If you are to become an Academy, there are responsibilities that you will have as a Scheduled Employer within the Local Government Pension Scheme.
If you have not done so already, we will require you to send us a signed and sealed copy of the Funding Agreement and confirmation of the date the Academy comes into existence.
Pension Fund Deficit
Any pension fund deficit will be transferred to the Academy when the LGPS members transfer over, so we will need to pass on certain member data to the Dorset County Pension Fund Actuary to will allow them to make the necessary calculations regarding any deficit and provide the relevant report.
You will need to partially complete The Member Data Spreadsheet (columns/fields headed in yellow) with details of the non-teaching staff involved in the transfer. If individuals have multiple employments, you will have to separate the employments onto to individual lines on the spreadsheet.
Your payroll provider should be able to help you with the completion of the spreadsheet.
Once you have returned the member data spreadsheet, we will add the relevant pensions data and pass it on to the Actuary.
The cost of providing the actuarial report will be confirmed and must be paid for by the Academy.
Annual Accounts Requirements
You will need to inform us if you will require FRS102 / IAS19 pension liability reports for the production of your Annual Accounts. If so, could you also let us know your accounting date and contact information for those responsible for producing the year-end accounts.
If these reports are required, we must be able to produce the financial information that the Fund Actuary will need. As the school will be part of a ‘Multi Academy Trust’, we will need to know what annual accounts you will be preparing, i.e. one for each school or one for the combined trust.
For this reason, can you confirm whether you wish the transferring employees to be held on our systems as employees of the Trust, or held separately as employees of the individual academy.
- If you are producing just one set of accounts for the trust (both for the EFA and for the Charity Commission) there will not be a problem whether the academy payroll and membership data is held separately on our systems for each school or for the Trust as a whole.
- If you will be producing separate accounts for each school, the payroll (even if it is run on a combined Trust basis) and the membership details must be available separately for each school.
Please note if you maintain records and produce accounts as a single Trust, with one set of accounts, for all practical purposes this status is irreversible with regards to FRS102 / IAS19 reporting.
There is a charge made for the FRS102 / IAS19 reports.
LGPS Membership & Automatic Enrolment
At the date of conversion, all support staff will continue to be eligible for the LGPS in the same way as they were immediately before the conversion date. The academy must automatically enter all new support staff that have a contract of three months or more into the scheme, whereas employees with zero hours or casual contracts have to elect to join the scheme. If a non-teaching staff member has a contract of less than 3 months, they may elect to join the scheme, but must not be brought in automatically.
After conversion, any non-teaching staff that have previously opted out will be brought back into the LGPS from day one of conversion, but with the option to opt back out again. It is the School’s responsibility to inform all eligible staff that they will be brought into the LGPS from that date. Please inform us of the name, date of birth and National Insurance number of all non-teaching employees who have been opted into the scheme as soon as possible. We will also require pension membership forms to be completed by all staff becoming members (see New Starters section).
If an individual chooses to opt out of the LGPS, forms can be obtained from the Pensions Section by the individual member. You will need to ensure that you notify your payroll provider of this requirement. Please note, under LGPS regulations, an employee cannot sign an opt-out form until the day they commence employment. This complies with auto-enrolment regulations.
Please inform us of your staging date for auto-enrolment as soon as possible. Further details on auto-enrolment can be found on The Pensions Regulator website.
New Starters
It is the School’s responsibility to notify us of all new starters and ensure all eligible employees are given a Pension Information Pack on commencement of employment so that they can make an informed decision regarding membership of the LGPS.
Please contact us by email at pensionshelpline@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk to request Pension Information Packs. The Membership Form (green form) needs to be completed by both the employee and your payroll and returned to this office. This ensures we have a complete record of the individual and they are able to apply for any transfer of pension rights as required.
Employees leaving the scheme/leaving employment
You will also need to inform us of any of your employees who leave the scheme, this is applicable for ALL leavers including retirements, opt outs, leaving employment, redundancy, etc.
We would also ask you to notify us as soon as you are aware of an employee’s intention to retire. It is important we are aware of this so we can begin gathering the appropriate information and ensure a timely payment of pension.
Further details on leaving employment can be found on the Leaving Employment section of our website.