Academy status

Accounts

An Academy may be required to include details of its pension liabilities as part of their annual accounts. This may be in the format of an IAS19 or FRS102 report but the Academy would need to contact their auditors for further clarification.

Early retirement costs

In accordance with Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) regulations, if a scheme member aged 55 or over is retired early by their employer or is made redundant by their employer, the scheme member becomes entitled to the immediate release of their accrued pension benefits.

In many cases this means that benefits are paid out of the Pension Fund in advance of the member's normal retirement date and therefore for a longer period than anticipated. The employer is required to make a payment to the Pension Fund (known as a capital cost or strain cost) in order to compensate the Pension Fund for having to pay benefits for longer than expected. It is worth noting that an employer should always request estimates for employees being retired early.

We have produced a briefing note containing further information about employer costs.

Transferring staff

As a academy you may consider ways in which you might deliver certain services differently e.g. cleaning, catering etc.  This may involve transferring some of your employees to an independent service provider who operates in the private sector.

It is highly likely that your non-teaching staff will be members of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) and so you will need to consider the pension implications of transferring LGPS members to a ‘private company’.

We have produced a briefing note containing further information about the actions you will need to take with regard to your employees’ pension rights prior to any transfer of their employment.