Guidance

Countdown bulletin 36 - August 2018

Published 14 August 2018

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Phase 7

HMRC hopes to include re-runs of existing solutions and scheme financial reconciliation in phase 7 automation.

We aim to have approval by 31 August 2018 and we’ll notify you as soon as possible after that date.

We’ll issue the phase 7 automation re-run schedule as soon as it’s available.

Dates of data re-run requests

The final date to request a Scheme Reconciliation Service (SRS) re-run of data has been revised from 30 June 2018 to 30 September 2018.

No further requests can be considered after that date, however a final scan will be produced and issued to schemes in March 2019. This will show scheme membership records held by HMRC at that time.

No further membership queries should be submitted following the issue of this data.

Deadline for submitting SRS queries

The deadline for submitting SRS queries which require clerical action is 31 October 2018.

HMRC will respond to all queries received by that date.

You can submit automation queries after 31 October for all available automation re-runs.

Pension scheme administrators must be responsible for the quality of the data submitted after 31 October, because the files rejected by automation will be returned to schemes unchecked, and the clerical remainder from automation will be returned unworked.

Turnaround times for clerical SRS queries

Pension scheme administrators have raised concerns that clerical response dates in December are now being provided.

We advised in countdown bulletin 30 that we expect most queries to have been answered by December 2018 but if necessary, resource will be made available to work any remaining queries in early 2019.

This position has not changed.

Not in scheme (NIS) Contribution Equivalent Premium (CEP) automation

A recent scan of scheme financials has shown that pension scheme administrators are either:

  • not paying the CEP amounts notified by the NIS CEP automated runs in time
  • not providing a breakdown of their payments as advised in countdown bulletin 34
  • are providing a breakdown but not providing all the required information, for example a scheme contracting-out number (SCON)

Whilst a refresh of SRS data may show that liability has been removed from the scheme, this is a temporary removal until the CEP due has been paid.

HMRC will identify CEPs that have not been paid within 3 months of the debt being raised on HMRC records (this will be earlier than the date the pension scheme administrator was notified).

We’ll then remove the CEP and re-instate liability in the scheme.

Change of responsible paying authority update

In countdown bulletin 35 we gave you information about a new automated solution for change of responsible paying authority.

This should have included:

  • ‘add an additional column AS to the query template’ on the bullet point ‘exporting SCON’
  • ‘add an additional column AT to the query template’ on the bullet point ‘importing SCON’

This solution will be useful if you’ve previously sent a ‘Was in scheme’ query and received an automated response saying ‘records show liability with another scheme for period advised – see scheme details where available’.

If you still think you have liability for the scheme period quoted on the original ‘Was in scheme’ query, you should send a change of responsible paying authority query quoting the details above.

You should quote the SCON provided on the ‘Was in scheme’ response as the exporting SCON, and your scheme SCON as the importing SCON.

You do not need to advise us if you accepted liability after 5 April 2016 because HMRC no longer track movements of membership that occurred after this date.

Find out more about the Scheme Reconciliation Service.

Read earlier countdown bulletins.

Contact details

For general queries about contracted-out pensions please contact the helpline on 0300 200 3507.

General queries about SRS should be made to the Customer Relationship Team by email to CRM.schemereconciliationservice@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk.

Use your usual contracted-out pensions contact for your day to day enquiries.

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