The period over which the growth in an individual’s pension is measured for assessment against the Annual Allowance (AA) is called the Pension Input Period (PIP).   The existing PIP for the Teachers’ Pension Scheme runs from 1 April to 31 March, in line with the financial year.

Legislation will change the PIP for all pension schemes to be in line with tax years.  The tax year 2015/16 will be the transitional year in which this will happen.  During 2015/16, this will mean that for Teachers’ Pensions, we’ll need to measure the pension accrual for all members over the period from 1 April 2015 to 5 April 2016.

Currently your employer provides us with annual data to 31 March each year.  Changing the PIP to align with tax years will mean that we’re now required to collect information up to 5 April.

We’ll ask your employer to submit an additional line of service for the period from 1 April to 5 April 2016, as well as the usual service line for the year ending 31 March 2016.

If information is only provided by your employer for the year to 31 March 2016, we’ll only be able to calculate your pension accrual based on this service only.

A Pension Saving Statement (PSS) will be issued to any member where the value of their pension has increased by more than £40,000 during the period from 1 April 2015 to 5 April 2016 (based on the information provided by your employer).   In the PSS we’ll clearly identify the service and salary information that has been used to calculate the increase in your pension value.  It’s very important that you check this information to ensure that it’s correct.

If from looking at your statement it’s clear that your employer has only submitted service up to 31 March 2016, yet you were in pensionable service up to 5 April 2016 and require an accurate calculation of your pension accrual for taxation purposes, you should ask your employer to provide the additional information to us. We’ll then be able to issue a PSS based on service to 5 April 2016.

Providing that the service and salary information is received by us no later than 6 July via the annual return from your employer, we’ll then issue a PSS to you by 5 October, if the value of the growth in your pension benefits exceeds £40,000.

We’ll keep you up to date with any further information in relation to the Annual Allowance and the forthcoming changes through our website.