The Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1999

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations make further amendments to the Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland) Regulations 1992 (“the 1992 Regulations”).

Regulation 3 amends regulation B2 of the 1992 Regulations so as to extend to part-time teachers the automatic membership provisions which apply to full-time teachers. Teachers who take up a part-time post on or after 1st April 1999 will be taken automatically into the Scottish teachers' pension scheme unless and until they opt out. Part-time teachers in post before that date, who had not already elected to join, will continue to be able to join the scheme, but will not become members automatically unless they take up a new employment on or after 1st April 1999. (The substituted regulation B2(2) re-enacts, with clarification, the provision that part-timers who are entitled to be members of the local government scheme may not be members of the teachers' scheme in respect of the same employment).

Regulation 3, along with regulations 5, 7 and 16, also inserts provisions whereby, if a person elects that part-time employment is to be pensionable and if the election has effect from a date earlier than the first day of the month in which it was given, interest may be payable on back contributions. The amendments further provide that, if back contributions and interest are not paid within 6 weeks of a demand, the election will not have effect from the earlier date. Regulation 20 makes a consequential amendment to the glossary of expressions contained in Schedule 1. Regulation 22 disapplies these amendments where the election was made before 1st April 1999 and before that date a request was made to the Secretary of State to specify the earlier date from which the election should have effect.

Regulation 4 amends regulation B4(5)(c) of the 1992 Regulations to specify failure to pay contributions under the Teachers' Superannuation (Additional Voluntary Contributions) (Scotland) Regulations 1995 as a further ground for withdrawal of “accepted school” status from an independent school.

Regulation 6 amends regulation C8A of the 1992 Regulations which allows a person who is called into service in a reserve force to pay contributions for a current period. As amended, regulation C8A applies to persons who are called up under a call-out notice or under a call-out order or recall order under the Reserve Forces Act 1996.

Regulation 8 substitutes regulation E7 of the 1992 Regulations. The effect of the new provision is to amend the formula for calculating a teacher’s retirement lump sum, so that service before 1st October 1956 is now treated in the same way as service undertaken on or after that date.

Regulations 9 and 10 provide for nominations of persons to receive death gratuities or deficiency grants to be in writing.

Regulation 11 amends regulation E22(3) of the 1992 Regulations which identifies who is eligible to be nominated to receive a pension. A parent or brother or sister of the appointor must now either be widowed or never have been married in order to be eligible to be a nominated beneficiary.

Regulations 12 and 13 amend regulations E23(4) and E25(5) of the 1992 Regulations respectively to provide that a short-term and long-term pension may be paid only to a nominated beneficiary who was wholly or mainly dependent on the deceased at the date of his death.

Regulation 14 amends regulation E29(13) of the 1992 Regulations, making new provision in a case where, in any financial year during the terminal period, a person has received an increase in contributable salary which is greater than 10% more than the “standard increase” (as defined). In such circumstances, the person will be treated for pension purposes as having received a salary increase of 10% more than the standard increase unless the person’s employer elects to pay an additional contribution under regulation G10(1D), as inserted by regulation 17. The additional contribution is the actuarial difference between retirement benefits based on the actual contributable salary and such benefits based on the contributable salary as if the person had received a salary increase of only 10% more than the standard increase. Regulation 19 provides for repayment of certain contributions where a person received an increase in salary as mentioned in regulation E29(13) but no election under regulation G10(1D) is made. The limit on salary increases does not apply where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the increase was agreed before 5th October 1998 (the date of consultation on the amendment).

Regulation 15 replaces regulation E31A of the 1992 Regulations which provides for interest to be payable on late payment of certain benefits. The main change is to alter the rate at which interest is paid from 1% above base rate to base rate. There is also a minor change to the definition of “base rate”.

Regulation 18 amends regulation H3 of the 1992 Regulations by inserting provision requiring a person in receipt of a teacher’s pension to notify the Secretary of State of any return to teaching employment including the salary, and any change in salary, in that employment.

Regulation 21 makes a minor correction to paragraph 9(2) of Schedule 4 to the 1992 Regulations to take account of the fact that an election to pay additional contributions to purchase past added years is no longer irrevocable.

Regulation 23 provides for a right to opt out of the amendments for any person to whom a benefit is or may become payable, if that person is placed in a worse position than he would be in if the amendments had not been made and the benefit is payable to or in respect of a person who had left employment before the date on which these Regulations come into force or who had died before that date.