This notice is for staff involved in the preparation of Remuneration Reports required for the Annual Resource Accounts exercise. It will be of particular interest to:
1. The resource accounts of organisations covered by the Civil Service pension arrangements must include a Remuneration Report of information about the salary and pension packages of Ministers and the senior management team.
2. Section 13 of the Employer Pension Guide (EPG) contains detailed guidance about what should be included in your Remuneration Report. Please refer to this guidance if you have any questions about the disclosure of salary, bonus, pension, and compensation information in your report.
3. Please note: Section 13 of the EPG also includes guidance on alpha.
Requesting pension information from the Scheme Administrator
4. You are responsible for identifying the individuals details who should be included in your Remuneration Report, and for requesting pension information from the Scheme Administrator.
5. To request pension information from the Scheme Administrator, you will need to complete Annex 13A in Section 13 of the EPG. You will need to contact your payroll provider in order to obtain some of the information that you need to give to the Scheme Administrator. Please note: you do not need to include figures from last year’s exercise.
6. When you have completed Annex 13A, please return it to the Scheme Administrator as soon as possible. Please email your completed Annex 13A to: resourceaccounts2021@mycsp.co.uk
7. You must complete Annex 13A fully and accurately. For information on how to complete Annex 13A, please refer to Section 13 of the EPG.
8. To request PCSPS/Alpha Ill Health retirement details from the Scheme Administrator, you will need to email: resourceaccounts2021@mycsp.co.uk, please refer to Section 13 of the EPG.
9. IMPORTANT: The Scheme Administrator will not be able to provide you with pension information unless:
a) you have completed Annex 13A fully and accurately no later than 30 April 2021; and
b) they have received and processed the interface from your March payroll.
10. If both of these criteria have been satisfied, the Scheme Administrator will provide you with the pension information in accordance with the Resource Accounts schedule for 2021. The schedule has been produced to align with audit dates to support the prioritisation of remuneration reports.
11. Any delays in not meeting the above criteria will need to be reviewed on an individual basis to agree a revised completion date.
12. To reduce the risk of transcribing errors, the Scheme Administrator will send you the results (both inputs and outputs) from the calculator they use to produce the information. This includes all the pension figures you need for the Remuneration Report.
Requesting pension information for Ministers from RPMI (Annex 13B)
13. Civil Service Departments that need information about their Ministers should complete Annex 13B in Section 13 of the EPG and send it to RPMI (the administrators for the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund). You should also follow the procedures in Annex 13F.
Example Remuneration Report (Annex 13C)
14. Annex 13C in Section 13 of the EPG contains an example Remuneration Report that shows how pay, pension and compensation information is presented. Apart from an update to the figures and dates, the only other change is that severance payments made to former Ministers are now disclosed.
Note to senior staff covered by Remuneration Report (Annex 13D)
15. Please issue the note contained in Annex 13D of Section 13 of the EPG to all staff who will be included in the Remuneration Report to provide advance warning of the exercise. Once you have obtained all the necessary figures, you should provide the staff in question with details of what you propose to publish and invite them to correct any factual errors.
Figures that will be used by the Scheme Administrator this year
16. When calculating the real increase in CETV and the pension benefits accrued during the year 2020/21 for the single total figure of remuneration, the Scheme Administrator will take account of inflation.
17. The CPI increase for September 2020 was 0.5%. Consequently, the Pensions Increase (PI) factor for April 2021 will be 0.5%. The in-service revaluation factor for alpha will also be 0.5%.
18. The earnings that count towards the calculation of pensions is limited for some staff to a figure referred to as the “earnings cap” or “permitted maximum”. Where this is relevant, the Scheme Administrator will calculate pensions based on the 2020/21 earnings cap of £170,400.
19. In some cases, the real increase in CETV and the pension benefits accrued for the single total figure of remuneration can be negative – that is, there can be a real decrease. This is particularly likely to happen during periods of pay restraint and/or where inflation is higher than pay increases.
20. Another scenario where there can be negative results is where a member is over their Normal Pension Age (NPA). The factors used to calculate the CETV are such that the value of pension that could have been taken at NPA decreases as the member gets older.
21. When the Scheme Administrator supplies you with the requested pension information, they will explain the reasons for any real decrease in CETV or pension element of the single figure of remuneration. They will also provide you with the combined information you need for your reports with the relevant rounding applied
Further support available to you
22. If you have read Section 13 of the EPG and the Resource Accounts Schedule FAQs and still have a query regarding the submission of your Remuneration Report, please email: resourceaccounts2021@mycsp.co.uk or contact your Employer Relationship Manager.
23. If you experience an issue regarding your monthly interface, please contact your Interface Analyst (IA) at: interfaceteam@mycsp.co.uk
If you have a question about the distribution of EPNs, or would like to receive them in a different format, please contact EPN@MyCSP.co.uk.
You can find electronic copies of the Employer Pension Guide, all current EPNs and forms in the Employer section of the Civil Service Pensions website.
This notice is for employers and should not be issued to scheme members.
Members can find information about their pension by visiting the member's section.