EPN709 - 2023/24 Annual Assurance Statements (AAS) exercise

Audience

• Accounting officers
• Chief executive officers
• Finance directors
• Finance managers
• Pension leads

Summary

This EPN provides information about this year’s Annual Assurance Statement (AAS) process.

Every participating Civil Service employer of the Civil Service Pension scheme (“the Scheme”) must ensure that they carry out their responsibilities in relation to the administration of the scheme. You can find these responsibilities in the Participation or Admission Agreement, which employers must sign.

Both Civil Service and New Fair Deal employers must complete the Annual Assurance Statement (AAS). If you are a Civil Service employer, your Accounting Officer (AO) must complete the AAS. If you are a New Fair Deal employer, your Chief Executive Officer (CEO) must complete the AAS.

The AAS helps the Civil Service Pension Scheme’s AO conduct their obligations to the Scheme, as outlined below.

• To ensure that the internal controls and operational processes of participating employers are robust and conducted in accordance with participation and admission agreements
• To confirm that your AO (if you are a Civil Service employer) or CEO (if you are a New Fair Deal employer) has undertaken the following obligations to the Scheme with appropriate care and due diligence:
• to remind employers of their role and responsibilities in relation to the Scheme; and
• to highlight areas of risk, where we would expect employers to focus their assurance.

We do not intend for the AAS to either provide a detailed assessment of process performance, nor duplicate reporting conducted elsewhere.

Detail

We will shortly be issuing the 2023/24 AAS to the individual(s) responsible for completing your organisation’s AAS, in accordance with our records. The steps below explain how to complete the AAS.

Step 1
Read the pop-up guidance on the AAS questionnaire as you answer the questions.
You can find further assistance on answering the questions in the FAQs on the Civil Service Pension Scheme website.

Step 2
Complete the Declaration section of the AAS - your organisation’s AO (if you are a Civil Service employer) or CEO (if you are a New Fair Deal employer) will need to do this.

Step 3
Sign the Declaration section with either a wet (handwritten) or electronic signature. If you are not providing a wet signature, please include an email from your CEO/AO to show they have agreed to the contents of the questionnaire.

Step 4
Send the signed Declaration electronically, along with the completed AAS to AAS2024@mycsp.co.uk by Wednesday 17 July 2024.

When submitting your AAS, please note:

• We will not accept an incomplete AAS
• We will mark your AAS as late if you provide it after Wednesday 17 July 2024
• You must include your organisation’s name in the AAS and Declaration file names.

If you have not received your AAS by Friday 7 June 2024, please contact us at AAS2024@mycsp.co.uk.

The Scheme Administrator (MyCSP) is responsible for issuing and managing AAS returns to enable us to focus on analysing the results and related actions arising from the submission of assurances.

Changes to this year’s process

We have made the following improvements to this year’s AAS process:

• Following the announcement that Capita Business Services (Capita) has been awarded the contract to administer the Civil Service Pension Scheme there will be some big changes in the next 2-3 years during the transition period and we would like to hear about any concerns or issues that you may have.
• We are continuing to accept the digital completion of the AAS to support employers’ flexible working practices
• We have simplified the questionnaire to make it easier to complete
• We’ve built enhanced validations into the questionnaire to advise when further information and supporting documentation is required
• We’ve included specific guidance for each question in the FAQs on the Civil Service Pension Scheme website.

If, after reading the FAQs, you have any questions about this year’s AAS process, please email: AAS2024@mycsp.co.uk.

Contacts

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.