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.
Further information to be supplied will be that relating to variable-time employees. Average weekly hours worked throughout a year (1 April to 31 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.
Year-end 2024 guidance notes
Year-end 2024 file template
Please note: if you are a user of i-Connect you will not be required to submit a year-end return. However, you may still be contacted with queries identified as part of the month 12 reconciliation process but it is anticipated the number of queries will be low in number.