The Department for Education (DfE) wrote to a number of employers recently (14 March 2019) regarding a change by The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to the boundaries for Dorset, Bournemouth & Poole. This resulted in a change to DfE Numbers (also known as local authority/establishment number) starting with 835, 836 and 837 from 1 April 2019.

As a result, accounts with the prefixes above have been closed as of 31 March and replaced with accounts starting either 838 or 839, depending on their location. In some cases the 4 digit establishment number may also have changed. We have already set up access to the new number.

This change also affects the service and contributions data you send to us via Monthly Data Collection and the Monthly Contributions Breakdown Form, which allows us to correctly allocate members’ service.

Please ensure any submissions for periods on or after 1 April are sent via your new number.

In order to make the changeover as simple as possible, please can you ensure that you’ve taken the necessary steps shown below. It’s really important you do this in order to avoid any penalties which can occur if there is a delay in payments. As the change has already happened we’d appreciate you working through this checklist as soon as you can.

• If this results in a change of named contacts at the establishment please complete ‘Declaration and Contact form’ (XLS, 198 KB) (This link opens in a new window) for the new LA/establishment number
• If this change results in a change of contract for your members (for example, upon moving to a new employer), please complete the enrolment template to ‘contractually’ enrol any affected members
• Include a ‘W’ indicator on all lines of March service against the old establishment number
• Make members aware that they may receive our ‘changed employer’ pack due to the change
• Process all outstanding tasks in task manager against the old number
• Process all outstanding errors files and checklists against the old number.

Please note that you’ll only have access to the ‘old’ number until 31 January 2020 so that all outstanding tasks, errors and checklists can be cleared.

Letters have been issued by us to members with Flexibilities to make them aware of what they need to do.

If you have any questions please contact;

General queries:
Employer Support Helpline - 0345 300 3756 (option 1) or serviceandsalary@teacherspensions.co.uk (This link opens in a new window)

Finance related queries:
Employer Support Helpline - 0345 300 3756 (option 2)

Further information on the changes can be found on the Legislation.gov.uk website. (This link opens in a new window)