Non payment of nhs contributions

Saffy22

I have recently been informed by the nhs pensions that as I went from a full time midwife in 1987 returning to work in 1993 after having my 3 children to part time hours (>21hrs/wk) I wasn’t paid any pension contributions from 1993-1999 as this was the policy. I was as not informed about this and presumed the contributions continued.is there anything I can do about this?? 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Saffy22 said:

I have recently been informed by the nhs pensions that as I went from a full time midwife in 1987 returning to work in 1993 after having my 3 children to part time hours (>21hrs/wk) I wasn’t paid any pension contributions from 1993-1999 as this was the policy. I was as not informed about this and presumed the contributions continued.is there anything I can do about this?? 

I think the main lesson you can learn from this is that it's always a good idea to check your payslips.

Have you got details of the policy - was it NHS policy?

Your particular employers policy?

Midwife specific policy?

Silvertabby

If similar rules to the LGPS apply/applied, then part-timers (of either gender) weren't allowed to join the pension scheme until 1995.

The LGPS allows (or did allow) fund members to pay the missing contributions to make this service pensionable, so it's worth asking the NHS if they have a similar scheme.

But note that it isn't a 5 minute process, and isn't cheap.  Of the LGPS members who expressed an interest, very few actually went ahead because of the cost, which would have had to be paid as a lump sum.

Marcon

Saffy22 said:

I have recently been informed by the nhs pensions that as I went from a full time midwife in 1987 returning to work in 1993 after having my 3 children to part time hours (>21hrs/wk) I wasn’t paid any pension contributions from 1993-1999 as this was the policy. I was as not informed about this and presumed the contributions continued.is there anything I can do about this?? 

The relevant NHS fact sheet https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/Part Time Access membership enquiry factsheet-20190509-(V1).pdf  says the following about part-timers:

On 8 February 2001, the House of Lords confirmed that access to membership of occupational pension schemes for part time employees could be backdated to 8 April 1976, providing the relevant normal conditions for membership were satisfied and the appropriate scheme contributions are paid.

The House of Lords ruling is concerned primarily with those NHS employees who were unable to join their occupational pension scheme because the Scheme's regulations or rules prevented them. In respect of NHS employees, the ruling may affect those non-medical grades who worked less than half the standard full-time hours for the grade during the period from 8 April 1976 to 1 April 1991.

That doesn't seem to apply to you, given your dates and the fact you worked more than 21 hours a week. The problem here is that you could have been a member of the NHS pension scheme during that period and would have been automatically enrolled unless you completed an opt out form (you clearly don't remember doing so, but given how long ago it was and the time pressures you would have been under with a demanding job and 3 equally demanding small children, that's not really a surprise) https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/Membership record factsheet 20190509-(V5) .pdf:

From 1 April 1991

All new part time employees are automatically made pensionable unless or until the SD502 opt-out form is completed. Existing part timers who were previously working less than half the standard whole time hours or those eligible but who had elected not to join using form SD157 would remain non-pensionable until they applied to join or were later auto-enrolled.

You can approach the scheme and ask if you can pay contributions in respect of that period, but I think it's very unlikely you will meet with a positive response.

Flugelhorn

Very useful post by @Marcon - my mother worked part time hours in admin in NHS from about 1972-1992 - she definitely got a pension from them and  I went back PT to the NHS in 1994 and there was no problem in being part of it 

It is quite hard to leave the scheme, I had to complete SD502 forms for each employer and then ensure that they didn't try to re-enrol me.
Maybe it was easier in those days to tick "no" to being part of the scheme ?

Marcon

There is one check worth making, just in case the current records are incorrect. OP, see: https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/shortforms/form/DPU_SAR_NI?_ga=2.230026460.1544670040.1621021753-1315656139.1609178084 and make an online request for they tax years 1992/93 up to 1999/2000.

Don't ask for your whole working life, or you'll spend forever ploughing through what could be several hundred pages of hard copy records (and I do mean several hundred!). When you get your pile of paperwork, which comes via post not email, look at something headed 'Scheme Membership' which will be at the end of the pack*. It'll show any pension schemes to which you belonged during the period 1992/93 up to 1999/2000 which were 'contracted out' of the State Additional Pension - and the NHS is one such scheme. If there's nothing recorded about pension scheme membership, you definitely weren't in the NHS scheme during this period. On the other hand, if it does show you were in the scheme, you need to go back to NHS pensions and point this out.

*Please come back here for help if you're utterly befuddled by what you receive!

nigelbb

Marcon said:

Saffy22 said:

I have recently been informed by the nhs pensions that as I went from a full time midwife in 1987 returning to work in 1993 after having my 3 children to part time hours (>21hrs/wk) I wasn’t paid any pension contributions from 1993-1999 as this was the policy. I was as not informed about this and presumed the contributions continued.is there anything I can do about this?? 

The relevant NHS fact sheet https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/Part Time Access membership enquiry factsheet-20190509-(V1).pdf  says the following about part-timers:

On 8 February 2001, the House of Lords confirmed that access to membership of occupational pension schemes for part time employees could be backdated to 8 April 1976, providing the relevant normal conditions for membership were satisfied and the appropriate scheme contributions are paid.

The House of Lords ruling is concerned primarily with those NHS employees who were unable to join their occupational pension scheme because the Scheme's regulations or rules prevented them. In respect of NHS employees, the ruling may affect those non-medical grades who worked less than half the standard full-time hours for the grade during the period from 8 April 1976 to 1 April 1991.

That doesn't seem to apply to you, given your dates and the fact you worked more than 21 hours a week. The problem here is that you could have been a member of the NHS pension scheme during that period and would have been automatically enrolled unless you completed an opt out form (you clearly don't remember doing so, but given how long ago it was and the time pressures you would have been under with a demanding job and 3 equally demanding small children, that's not really a surprise) https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/Membership record factsheet 20190509-(V5) .pdf:

From 1 April 1991

All new part time employees are automatically made pensionable unless or until the SD502 opt-out form is completed. Existing part timers who were previously working less than half the standard whole time hours or those eligible but who had elected not to join using form SD157 would remain non-pensionable until they applied to join or were later auto-enrolled.

You can approach the scheme and ask if you can pay contributions in respect of that period, but I think it's very unlikely you will meet with a positive response.

On the face of it the OP should have had contributions deducted. I think that the onus is on NHS Pensions to produce the form confirming that they were opted out. In the absence of that form at the very least they should be offered the opportunity to make up the missing contributions on the assumption that a mistake was made. 

Marcon

nigelbb said:

Marcon said:

Saffy22 said:

I have recently been informed by the nhs pensions that as I went from a full time midwife in 1987 returning to work in 1993 after having my 3 children to part time hours (>21hrs/wk) I wasn’t paid any pension contributions from 1993-1999 as this was the policy. I was as not informed about this and presumed the contributions continued.is there anything I can do about this?? 

The relevant NHS fact sheet https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/Part Time Access membership enquiry factsheet-20190509-(V1).pdf  says the following about part-timers:

On 8 February 2001, the House of Lords confirmed that access to membership of occupational pension schemes for part time employees could be backdated to 8 April 1976, providing the relevant normal conditions for membership were satisfied and the appropriate scheme contributions are paid.

The House of Lords ruling is concerned primarily with those NHS employees who were unable to join their occupational pension scheme because the Scheme's regulations or rules prevented them. In respect of NHS employees, the ruling may affect those non-medical grades who worked less than half the standard full-time hours for the grade during the period from 8 April 1976 to 1 April 1991.

That doesn't seem to apply to you, given your dates and the fact you worked more than 21 hours a week. The problem here is that you could have been a member of the NHS pension scheme during that period and would have been automatically enrolled unless you completed an opt out form (you clearly don't remember doing so, but given how long ago it was and the time pressures you would have been under with a demanding job and 3 equally demanding small children, that's not really a surprise) https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/Membership record factsheet 20190509-(V5) .pdf:

From 1 April 1991

All new part time employees are automatically made pensionable unless or until the SD502 opt-out form is completed. Existing part timers who were previously working less than half the standard whole time hours or those eligible but who had elected not to join using form SD157 would remain non-pensionable until they applied to join or were later auto-enrolled.

You can approach the scheme and ask if you can pay contributions in respect of that period, but I think it's very unlikely you will meet with a positive response.

On the face of it the OP should have had contributions deducted. I think that the onus is on NHS Pensions to produce the form confirming that they were opted out. In the absence of that form at the very least they should be offered the opportunity to make up the missing contributions on the assumption that a mistake was made. 

Ideally yes - but set against that is the fact that payslips will have shown whether or not contributions were being deducted, so I think care is needed before raising OP's hopes.

Flugelhorn

I am not sure that in 1990s there would have been a form sent to the pensions agency if someone was starting from new (and coming back after several years may well count as that - HR probably got people to complete a form and tick whether they wanted the pension - possibly the form was then kept by HR and only actioned if they said YES.  Once you are in the scheme it is harder to get out but perhaps at that time fairly easy not to join up and there may now be no record of the decision