We’d like to remind you of the importance of including a ‘w’ indicator to signify when a member has either left your employment or has left teaching completely.

The misuse of a ‘w’ indicator can directly impact a member’s pension benefits and, in the case of providing one unnecessarily, can trigger automated leaver literature being sent to the member, which causes queries and complaints.

The ‘w’ indicator should be provided to confirm when one of the following situations occurs:

• When a member is leaving an LA maintained school to take up a position with another maintained school within the same LA
• When a member is leaving an academy under a MAT to take up a position with another academy within the same MAT
• When a member is leaving the employer
• When a member changes job roles and that change requires a new contract of employment to be provided
• When an LA maintained school leaves the LA to become an academy
• When an academy becomes part of a MAT and the MAT becomes the employer
• When an academy moves from one MAT to another.

For further details, please see page 55 of our Monthly Contributions Reconciliation User Guide (PDF, 1.6 MB) (This link opens in a new window), or page 20 of our Guidance and Error codes document (PDF, 626 KB) (This link opens in a new window) if you’re on MDC.