We are still seeing enquiries from employers seeking clarification in relation to annual leave payments and payment in lieu of notice.
Firstly, to confirm there has been no change to NHS Pension Scheme regulations.
Payments for annual leave should be treated as pensionable. Payments made in lieu of notice should be treated as non-pensionable. Therefore;
- For staff who have untaken annual leave at their last day of membership, either due to termination of employment, or death in service, their leaving date is extended by the number of days outstanding annual leave which is pensionable.
- For staff who are being paid a compensatory payment (payment in lieu of notice) usually due to their contract being terminated through redundancy or dismissal, their leaving date is not extended and this payment is treated as non-pensionable.
Electronic Staff Record (ESR):
The pension leaving date should reflect the date that the annual leave is paid up to. In ESR this should be recorded by using the ‘Override Pen End Date’ field in the ‘Pension NHS’ element. This will ensure that the date will be submitted via the IAT process and will enable the system to add the correct date to the ‘Override Pen Start Date’ field on the employee’s record in the new organisation, consequently preventing overlapping service errors.
The IAT process has been enhanced so that if the ‘Override Pension End Date’ field on the ‘Pension NHS’ element of an employee’s primary assignment has been populated then this value will be transferred into the ‘Override Pension Start Date’ field of the ‘Pension NHS’ element of the primary assignment at the Target VPD + 1 day.
For example:
Source Trust:
Override Pension End Date = 05-May-2020
Target Trust (after IAT)
Override Pension Start Date = 06-May-2020