Education pensions, managed with precision
Teachers' Pensions, LGPS - we handle the complexity so your staff records stay accurate and your obligations are met.
Why education pensions are a specialism in their own right
Pension administration in education isn’t a standard auto-enrolment exercise.
Most schools and trusts are responsible for some of the most complex public sector pension schemes in the UK – the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and the Local Government Pension Schemes (of which there are 86 admin authorities in England and Wales, a further 11 regional funds operating in Scotland and a single national fund running in Northern Ireland).
Each scheme has its own contribution structure, its own submission requirements, its own reporting deadlines and its own consequences for non-compliance.
Errors don’t just create administrative headaches. They affect the pension records of the people who work in your school – records that are often difficult and time-consuming to correct once they’ve gone wrong.
Getting it right from the outset matters. That’s what we’re here for.
Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS)
The Teachers’ Pension Scheme is a defined benefit scheme administered by Teachers’ Pensions on behalf of the Department for Education.
For schools and academies, the obligations are significant including;
- Monthly data submissions
- Accurate contribution calculations based on pensionable pay
- Management of membership changes throughout the year.
We handle the full cycle of TPS administration as part of your managed pension service, including monthly service returns, starters and leavers, changes in contract or working pattern, and annual reporting.
Our team understands the scheme rules and keeps pace with updates, so you don’t have to.
Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
Support staff in schools are typically members of the LGPS, administered locally through individual administering authorities.
This means your LGPS obligations may involve a different set of processes, contribution bandings, and reporting requirements to your TPS obligations — often running in parallel on the same payroll.
Add if you are a MAT and have schools across different Local Authority Groups, you will also have to deal with multiple LGPS schemes
With so many different admin authorities across the UK, each with different reporting requirements, you can see why education pensions are so complex and why many payroll bureaus used to only dealing with a few pension providers become unstuck.
We manage LGPS contributions and submissions alongside TPS, handling the administration for all schemes within a single, joined-up payroll and pension process. We also manage the relationship with your administering authority, ensuring data is submitted in the right format, on time, every period.
Employee communications, handled for you
One of the more time-consuming aspects of pension administration is keeping employees informed – new starters, changes in eligibility, re-enrolment windows, and opt-in or opt-out requests all generate communication requirements.
We manage this for you. Using our Elementary employee app or written communications, we distribute the necessary notifications to your staff in a clear, compliant format. That’s one less thing for your HR team to coordinate.
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Let’s have a chat about how we can transform your education payroll and pension management
