Membership

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The following explain how annual leave can affect a member’s pension:

• Paid annual leave is pensionable when taken in the normal course of employment and contributions should be collected the normal way.
• If you operate flexible leave schemes, pension contributions, pensionable pay and membership should be maintained at the original level.
• If a member leaves pensionable employment with outstanding annual leave, the date of leaving should be extended by the number of annual leave days not taken.
• A member cannot be pensionable in more than one employment at the same time, if they equate to more than whole time.
• We will notify an employer if a start date or end date needs to be adjusted for pension purposes, due to overlapping employments with another employer.
• Whole time employments take priority over part time employments.
• Payments for annual leave should not be confused with payments made in lieu of notice, which are compensatory payments and non-pensionable.

For example, a member is leaving one whole time employment and moving to one with another employer.

They finish on the Friday and start their new job the following Monday.

They have 3 weeks' remaining annual leave from the first employer.

The period of leave is pensionable with the first employer and the member is not pensionable with the second employer.

Contributions for the new job should start in 3 weeks time.

Payments made by an employer in lieu of notice are not pensionable. They are compensation to an employee for breach of contract of employment.

No contributions are payable and the period covered by the payment is not membership because it is not a period of actual employment.

The date of termination of employment is the last day of membership.

Remember:

• a period of paid notice is pensionable and extends membership
• a payment made in lieu of notice is not pensionable and does not extend membership

Disallowed days are recorded in circumstances where a member receives no pay.

Examples of this could include:

• strike action
• a period of unpaid sick leave

No pension contributions can be collected for these unpaid periods.

It is your responsibility to calculate the amount of pay lost.

NHS Employers have published guidance for strike days. You can read this on www.nhsemployers.org.

You should also determine the number of days the lost pay relates to and notify these to NHS Pensions as disallowed days. This is so the period does not count as membership for calculating benefits and is not included when calculating pensionable pay periods.

When a member is absent for less than a day

Contributions must be deducted in respect of the hours worked where a member is absent for a period of less than a day. For part time members, you only record actual hours worked.