Operational updates
For action
Members opting-out and withdrawing – action required by 19 March
Just a reminder, that you can still submit your results for July to December 2019. Please include information about withdrawals as well as opt-outs – both are equally important. If you have none it’s still helpful to let us know, please enter ‘0’ (zero).
To submit your results click here
Payments from USS to be made by BACS from 1 April 2020
We asked all institutions to provide their bank details to us on letter headed paper in an email on 7 January.
From 1 April 2020, we will no longer be making payments by cheque, so if you have not done so already, please provide your bank details promptly.
If you have any queries, please contact bankdetails@uss.co.uk
For information
Our Pensions Policy team have looked at the most popular queries they receive from clients and have created the two articles below for reference:
What happens if a member is going to be absent for more than 12 months?
This refers to voluntary absence. It does not cover absences due to sickness, maternity/paternity/adoption leave, shared parental, or family leave.
Members can be absent or seconded from employment for an initial 12 months. Membership will be suspended, contributions will stop, and benefits will not accrue unless you and the member agree to continue contributing in full during the absence. In this scenario benefits will continue to accrue.
If contributions have stopped, the member may choose to pay special contributions only in order to cover death and incapacity benefits.
If the member is absent for more than 12 months, they will have to leave the scheme unless they have employer approval to be absent for longer, intend to return to employment when the absence ends, and the absence is for one of the following reasons:
- To undertake work of national importance
- To undergo full time education (must be connected with the members employment)
- Seconded to another UK employer
- Seconded to an overseas project
- Research
If all of the above criteria is met, their membership can remain suspended for up to 10 years except in cases of national importance, which can remain suspended for an indefinite amount of time.
If you have any questions, please refer to the Client Engagement team
What payments are pensionable?
"Salary" is defined as the aggregate of:
(a) the gross fixed salary and fixed cash allowances; and
(b) where the employer with the consent of the trustee company so determines:
- any fixed cash allowances agreed between the member and the employer and taken in place of benefits in kind; and
- all or any part of a member's benefits taken in kind which are, by agreement between the member and the employer, treated for the purposes of the scheme as being a notional fixed cash allowance; and
- any fluctuating remuneration averaged over the preceding 12 months or over the whole period, if shorter.
In accordance with the definition of salary, we generally consider fixed remunerations as pensionable. Anything that is temporary or sporadic in nature is considered non pensionable.
- Fixed remuneration refers to a permanent payment such as a member’s salary or an allowance that is necessary for the member to perform their duties.
- Non fixed remunerations include payments that are temporary, one off, can be retracted, or not necessary for the member to perform their duties.
There is no minimum or maximum amount of pay that is deemed pensionable. Members must pay pension contributions on all pay that is considered pensionable.
There is no minimum or maximum amount of pay that is deemed pensionable. Members must pay pension contributions on all pay that is considered pensionable.
If salary is deducted in order to receive a non-cash benefit, then pensionable salary will remain the pre deducted amount.
Common examples of remunerations and if they are pensionable are shown in the table below. Please be aware that the same type of allowance could be pensionable or not in different circumstances dependant on its permanency. Please note that this is not a complete list and can often depend on an individual’s status so should not be taken as definitive.
| Type of allowance |
Permanent? |
Pensionable? |
| Honorarium |
No |
No |
| Market supplements |
No |
No |
| London Weighting |
Yes |
Yes |
| Bonus' |
No |
No |
| Attraction/retention supplements |
No |
No |
| Attraction/retention supplements |
Yes |
Yes |
| Voluntary severance payment |
No |
No |
| Market Force Supplement |
Yes |
Yes |
| Overtime |
No |
No |
| Contractual overtime |
Yes |
Yes |
If an allowance is deemed pensionable within a particular post, this decision must apply to all individuals who are employed in that post, without exception.
If requested there is a provision in the Scheme rules that allows the trustees, on a case by case basis, to use its discretion to consider any non-pensionable payments as pensionable.
If you have any questions, please contact the Pensions Policy team.
What happens after I press the retirement quote submit button?
We hold regular focus groups with 25 of our clients to use their expertise and experience to gather feedback and suggestions about our products and services. What happens ‘after submitting a retirement quote’ was raised as an area of interest by focus group members:
- A quotation process is started immediately and appears in the Active Retirement Team worktray.
- Each afternoon, a member of the team triages these cases and makes an assessment as to the complexity of the case, and will also look through any forms that have been attached for any mistakes, omissions or ambiguities that we may need to query.
- If there are any discrepancies on the documents provided with the request, the team member who triaged the case will contact the relevant party (usually the member or employer) directly to resolve the query. This tends to be more common on the member’s section of the “Notification of Member’s Retirement Form” rather than the employer’s.
- The cases are marked up with a description to give the team an idea of the complexity (e.g. “Possible Tax Charge” or “Final Flex with AVCs”), and then a master list is drawn up of cases that are due that day for processing in accordance with our Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
- Cases are in general completed in order of the date on which they were received. In some situations we may process cases early if there is a legitimate need for urgency, the most common being the serious ill health of a member. In addition, cases may also be processed later than expected should we have any questions for the member/employer that require investigation.
- On a given day, the team work from this master list to ensure the appropriate cases are completed, checked and posted. Practically, this means that we focus on more complex cases earlier in the day, on the grounds that these are more likely to be returned for amendments, to give us sufficient time to correct, re-check and post the same day.
If you have any questions about the retirement quotation process, please refer to the Retirement Quotation Administration Guide or contact the Active Retirement team.