Practitioner Contributions Remediation
Following a reconciliation exercise, the SPPA is carrying out remediation with NHS Employers as it has been established that NHS Employers have under or over collected pension contributions for one or more scheme years.
The amount you pay towards your pension scheme depends on your ‘pensionable pay’ (which is your salary, wages, fees and any other regular payments, but not any bonuses, expenses or overtime payments).
For Salaried GP’s/Assistant Practitioners, your contribution rate is based on your total pensionable income. This is the total of all earnings from:
- The Practice
- Out of hours contract
- Locum Work
Once the rate has been established, this must be applied to all earnings.
Who is responsible for what?
The SPPA administer the NHS Pension scheme (Scotland). We are responsible for ensuring that your pension is calculated correctly and paid on time, based on information provided to us by NHS employers.
NHS Employers, including self-employed GP’s who deliver services for the NHS are responsible for ensuring that they deduct the correct contribution rates depending on your total pensionable pay.
It is the scheme member’s responsibility to inform all their employers of all earnings to ensure they can calculate and deduct the correct contribution rate.
Assistant and salaried GP practitioners, including locums who are not principal GPs, are required to ensure that aggregate earnings from all NHS employment are taken into account when setting the contribution rate.
Next steps?
The SPPA are seeking to recover under-collected contributions for the period from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2022 and will be required to pursue any shortfall going forward. To comply with legal requirement any contribution shortfall for the period before 1 April 2017 shall not be recovered, as directed by the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973.
The amounts involved will be determined as part of a reconciliation exercise with NHS employers to ensure the information we hold is accurate and up to date.
We are currently seeking advice from a legal counsel to inform our next steps. We are also reviewing the required contributions form(s) after receiving feedback from our members.
We will be in contact with affected members in due course. We will let you know when we need further information from you. You do not need to contact us in the meantime.