Directional Body Newsletters – Quarter 4 – 2024/2025

Following a review by the Government Actuary Department, it was noted that the required member yield of 9.8% was not being met with the new tiers introduced in Phase 2 of the new contributions structure.

It has therefore been necessary to change the contributions tiers to better reflect the yield. Each tier is therefore increasing by 0.2% over last year. This increase is not applied to the lowest tier, which is earmarked for removal /change at some point in the future.

Additionally, in line with the regulations, the thresholds of the new tiers are to increase in line with inflation. The rate used is 1.7%
It should be pointed out that the increase is effective for the 25/26 year—if the Agenda for change pay award offered is “significantly greater” than the CPI increase, these thresholds will change in the future, retrospectively from 01/04/2025. all employers should therefore be aware that a rate review may need carried out against ALL earnings from 01/04/2025, not just any future backpay given.

Please see the new thresholds and rates below—please see the Employer Technical Update for full information.

Member contributions rates effective 01/04/2025—applicable to ALL members:

The GP55a to finalise 24/25 year is due by Friday 16th May. The team will complete checks on the submission and the information will be used to update member pension records in preparation for Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) 25. Further information about the progress of ABS25, will be provided in June 2025 Newsletter.

Points to note about your GP55a submission.

• You must fully complete all required information on the GP55a tab for 24/25
• Please submit the GP55a for 24/25 to HSCpensions@hscni.net clearly marked as “GP55a 24/25
• You should check the error checker page for any errors and aim to resolve before sending to HSC Pension Service.
• You may receive a query email from the HSC Pension Service GP admin team regarding your GP55a. Please reply to this email as soon as possible to avoid any issues.
• Please ensure the following have been checked before submitting:
  • WTE is reflective of any pay award received up to 31/03/2025
  • PT hours entered only reflect the actual PT hours worked for the period the member was part time—deemed if any period of maternity or sickness etc.
  • Deemed earnings are reported for any periods of Maternity, Paternity, SPL or Sickness
  • Please ensure that any member who had enhanced payments as part of their standard contract has “enhancements” noted on the comment column

If a staff members employment is terminated on the grounds of ill health, please ensure HSC Pension Service is notified of this at the time of termination, as this may affect the level of ill health pension benefits they may be entitled to if applying for ill health pension at a later date.

This can be noted on the T55a termination form and the subsequent submission email.

All employers submit pensionable data to HSC Pensions at different times through the year.

There are times where the same information is being requested, and it may feel like you are simply repeating the process. this section this quarter will outline what information is required and when.

J2 starter form and the start date reported:

This form is required for each and every person on your payroll, EACH TIME they start a pen-sionable post. If a member has worked for your employment for 20 years, but then takes on an additional role that you pay at a different rate, you need to send a NEW J2 to tell us about the new role, as it is paid at a different rate, it has implications for some members pension benefits and needs to be reported as if it were 2 people working the roles.

You are not just informing us the person is joining the scheme, you are informing us that they are joining the scheme, within your employment, on a specific date that may not be the same as the date the joined the employment.

T55a and Year end data:

HSC Pension legislation requires confirmation of final figures be sent by the employer. This is done by submitting a T55a terminating form. We often get asked—why do I need to send this data when its been sent already on the GP55a every year.

The GP55a each year confirms the figures for the previous year and they are loaded to record and these build the members benefits over time.

The T55a informs our team that a members pensionable employment has ended, and confirms that the final few years of data has remained the same and hasn’t changed due to backdated amendments to pay, pay awards, Uplifts etc that were not reported previously.

As a result of the McCloud Remedy, HSC Pension Service must add an additional number of steps to the process of calculating and paying HSC Pension Benefits to Scheme members.

In accordance with the remedy, all affected retirees must be furnished with a Remedial Service Statement (RSS) which provides detailed information relating to benefit accrual during the rem-edy period, i.e. 01/04/2015 to 31/03/2022 or part thereof. This is commonly referred to as their McCloud Choice Statement.

Members have a statutory time limit of 3 months to return their choice on how they wish to claim the said benefits for the remedy period, after which, if no response is received they will be auto-matically awarded benefits from the legacy scheme for the remedy period.

It is therefore imperative, that as a result of these additional steps and statutory timeframes for members to make their choice, HSC Pension Service must increase the lead in time for the re-ceipt of pension benefit applications to 6 months.

This will allow HSC Pension Service sufficient time to:

• Review the application for completeness.
• Calculate up to 4 possible benefit forecasts for members to consider when making their choice.
• Issue RSS to members electronic or home address.
• Provide members with the statutory 3-month period to make and return their choice.
• Monitor, document and record choice statement returns.

Due to delays in our system capabilities and complexity of revision of Pensions, our choice for pensioners has been delayed. We do hope to start contacting pensioners with their choice in-formation in the coming months. HSCPS and our IT supplier continue to liaise on the process and development for the revision of pensions and agree a format of how the system will display and writeback the results in line with our Remedial Service Statements.

HSCPS and our IT supplier, are currently developing a new dual annual benefit statement for McCloud affected members. This statement will show both estimated options available for the remedy period and will replace the old format.

Members who are aged 55 and over or have a protected minimum pension age of 50, and have an agreement from their employer, can choose to take part, or all, of their pension bene-fits and continue in HSC employment. This is called partial retirement – it may also be known as drawdown.

To be eligible for partial retirement, a member must:

• have reached their minimum pension age,
• be an active member of the Scheme,
• reduce their actual pensionable pay by at least 10% for the 12 months starting from the date they take partial retirement (for GP’s, Dental Practitioners, Ophthalmic and non-GP Providers a 10% reduction in commitment is required),
• Their 10% reduction in pensionable pay is calculated based on their previous level of pensionable pay for the 12 months before they take partial retirement,
• have a change in their terms and conditions of employment to reflect the reduction in pensionable pay, the rest of their terms and conditions remain the same,
• expect their new level of pensionable pay to last at least 12 months from the point partial retirement is taken,
• not have already claimed partial retirement on two occasions.

Further information can be found on our website here: HSC Partial Retirement Member Factsheet

Please note that the factsheet contains generic information relating to partial retirement and their may be terminology and references that do not apply to all employers, such as referring to your HR etc. please make adjustments accordingly for your place of work.

By writing to us at:

HSC Pension Service
Orchard House
40 Foyle Street
Derry/ Londonderry
BT48 6AT

Via e- mail at:- hscpensions@hscni.net
By Telephone: 028 7131 9111 Option 3
10.00 am to 12.00pm / 2.00 pm to 4.00pm – Monday to Thursday
10.00 am to 12.00pm – Friday