Public-sector pensions: Re-tendering guidance and bulk transfer assumptions published for NHS pension scheme

The Department of Health has issued a short guide to the process that should be followed to ensure that appropriate bulk transfer arrangements are in place where an NHS organisation is re-tendering for the provision of services that will involve a transfer of staff back into the NHS pension scheme (NHSPS) in accordance with Fair Deal 2013. The revised Fair Deal guidance changed the options available to a contractor in such transactions to allow them to participate in the NHSPS. Before that, although limited participation was possible, it was more common for contractors to establish their own broadly comparable pension scheme, certified by the Government Actuary's Department.

Fair Deal 2013 provides that when these contracts come to be re-tendered, the contracting authority should require bidders to provide the employees with access to a public-sector pension scheme in respect of their new employment (Fair Deal 2013, Paragraph 1.25). For more information, see Practice note, Public-sector pension schemes: outsourcing: Fair Deal 2013.

To accompany the guidance the Department of Health has also published the actuarial assumptions which are to be used to calculate the total bulk transfer amount required for transfers to and from funded schemes and involving the NHSPS (including the new scheme which came into effect on 1 April 2015). The assumptions will be used to calculate the value of the liabilities where there is to be a transfer in, and for the service or pension credits which should be provided in the contractor's scheme for transferring staff, in line with Fair Deal 2013.

Sources: Department of Health, Re-tendering: NHS Pension Scheme and NHSPS and NHSPS 2015 (England and Wales) Actuarial assumptions for bulk transfer calculations from or to funded schemes (June 2015).