LGPS vs TPS, or LGPS and TPS

mark55man

Forgive me for appealing to the massed knowledge of this forum once again. My worry is this is a bit of a complicated one, so I would be happy with a pointer to who to ask

* My OH is a qualified teacher and did so for 9 years as part of TPS.
* She then left (stay at home mom for more than 5 years) and then restarted as a TA (teaching assistant) and is currently under LGPS and has been for 5 years
* She is being offered enhanced pay to take on more responsibilities including some teaching (to help another staff member with flexible working). This will be semi permanent (at least 5-7 years)

I see three ways to go
* stay with the LGPS and gain the benefit from a higher salary for these years but if at the end she moves back to full time teaching this may cost her TPS benefits
* move to the TPS to start getting years added ASAP (I do understand her earlier service is separate from this), but this will crystalise lower benefits in LGPS whilst potentially adding more years at a higher salary
* be in both at once for different parts of her job

For me the critical bit of infromation I need is how the LGPS final salary is calculated. I am sure it is not yet a career average, but this is under consideration

I suppose what I am really asking is what we need to consider to make that decision, or whether she may not have any choice (eg if the LGPS scheme rules exclude income from Teaching, or the TPS rules exlude income from TA)

Hope that makes sense - I have done some reading but haven't find anything that makes it clear

Thanks in advance

xylophone

http://www.lgps.org.uk/lge/core/page.do?pageId=1
https://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/public/contact-us.aspx
Ask your questions at above?

jem16

mark88man wrote: »

For me the critical bit of infromation I need is how the LGPS final salary is calculated. I am sure it is not yet a career average, but this is under consideration

At the moment both the LGPS and TPS are final salary schemes. When the move is made to Career Average, accrued benefits will be preserved.

I suppose what I am really asking is what we need to consider to make that decision, or whether she may not have any choice (eg if the LGPS scheme rules exclude income from Teaching, or the TPS rules exlude income from TA)

I don't think she has a choice. She can only join the TPS if she is employed as a teacher and it is that salary that will form the basis of her main contribution. The same applies to the LGPS.

hyubh

mark88man wrote: »

I see three ways to go
* stay with the LGPS and gain the benefit from a higher salary for these years but if at the end she moves back to full time teaching this may cost her TPS benefits

At the present time, the LGPS membership could just be transferred into the TPS on preferential ('club') terms in which (from the member's point of view) the LGPS service pretty much just gets moved across to the TPS. It also works the other way round, so that a former teacher might transfer her TPS membership into the LGPS (usually you need to arrange this within the first year of starting the new job though).

* move to the TPS to start getting years added ASAP (I do understand her earlier service is separate from this),

I don't know about the TPS, but in the LGPS you have a year to combine previous periods of membership when you start a new job so that it all goes against the final salary of the latter.

* but this will crystalise lower benefits in LGPS whilst potentially adding more years at a higher salary
* be in both at once for different parts of her job

Are you sure she gets to pick and chose which scheme she's in like that, especially with respect to the third option? While the situation does sound like one of the edge cases in which the rules don't clearly define what is the 'correct' scheme, to elect to have one part of an employment in one scheme and the other part in another scheme sounds odd. Even if she gets a choice with respect to the whole employment and decides to stay with the LGPS, if her hours working as a qualified teacher were to increase, she would be liable to be moved into the TPS regardless of what she decided before.

For me the critical bit of infromation I need is how the LGPS final salary is calculated.

Average of the whole-time equivalent pay for the final 12 months of the job; if the average for the either the penultimate or third from last year is higher, then that should be used instead; various other possibilities stemming from protections that (if applicable) the member will need to contact their employer about. The 'best in last 3' check should in principle be done as a matter of course, though many LGPS employers (public and private sector, big and small) struggle with scheme minutae like that.

I am sure it is not yet a career average,

More than likely from 2014, however active members at that point will have their service to date produce final salary benefits against their pay when they actually leave, however far into the future.

I suppose what I am really asking is what we need to consider to make that decision, or whether she may not have any choice (eg if the LGPS scheme rules exclude income from Teaching, or the TPS rules exlude income from TA)

The LGPS acts as a sort of 'default scheme' here - it's the TPS rules that stipulate who should be in what scheme.

mark55man

Thank you all very much for your help. I have been able to glean the information I need from this.

Particularly I think that although 5 years ago we were on autopilot, the decisions we made by default were not too bad, excepting that I think we had more options to buy more years which we could have done something with