Countdown Bulletin 47 - July 2019
Published 30 July 2019
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Scheme Financial billing exercise
In Countdown Bulletin 45 we told you that we will be re-running the Scheme Financial Reconciliation (SFR) billing exercise.
The cut-off date for this exercise is 19 July 2019. This means that when we re-run the billing exercise on 8 August 2019, any debt raised on or before 19 July will be included in your final bill if the debt is still outstanding following our scheme financial allocations exercises.
The allocations exercises are explained in Countdown Bulletin 46.
We currently expect to issue letters to the day to day administrators of schemes in debt shortly after the 15 August 2019. The letters will only show the total amount owed, individual members will not be listed.
Letters for schemes that have previously been accepted into the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) or the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) will be sent to the PPF within the same timescales.
A breakdown of your final bill will be automatically provided through your Shared Workspace e-room and this will show the members that we could re-instate in your scheme if you do not pay your bill. We will start to provide the bill breakdowns on 15 August 2019 so you could receive these before you receive your letter in the post.
Important points to note:
- we will not request payments by telephone or email
- we will write off all the debt of schemes who owe less than or equal to £1000 overall
- for schemes who owe more than £1000 overall, we will write off debt older than 6 years as at 8 August 2019
This could reduce the overall debt to £1000 or less but this will be billed.
We need you to use the details below when making your payment and we need your payment by 27 September 2019 at the latest.
| Sort Code | Account number | Beneficiary details |
|---|---|---|
| 20 20 48 | 30944793 |
SFR ENF followed by your SCON (you will need to use the SCON from our letter) |
Remember to include the beneficiary details as this will allow us to record the payments to your account without unnecessary delay.
We do not need a breakdown of your payment because we will automatically allocate it to the members we identified in our exercise and who were subsequently included in the total amount owed on your letter.
It is important that you pay the full amount owed or, on 17 October 2019, liability will be re-instated in your scheme for some or all of your members. If you only make part payment of the full amount owed we cannot guarantee that the payment will be used for the members for which it is intended as explained in Countdown Bulletin 46.
We will not be giving a list of re-instated members, but these members will be shown on your final data cut from the Scheme Reconciliation Service. We currently expect the final data cuts to be issued in November and December 2019 and we will provide more detail of our plans in the next Countdown Bulletin.
The cut-off date of 19 July 2018 means that in the unlikely event that HMRC needs to record a Contributions Equivalent Premium or a Limited Revaluation Premium after this date, then a clerical bill CA1620 will be issued.
Scheme Financial refund exercise
In Countdown Bulletin 45 we also told you that we will be re-running the Scheme Financial Reconciliation refund exercise.
The cut-off date for this exercise is also 19 July 2019. This means that when we re-run the refund exercise on 15 August 2019, any money recorded by HMRC on or before 19 July will be considered for final refund if the money is still unallocated following our scheme financial allocations exercises. The allocations exercises are explained in Countdown Bulletin 46.
When considering a final refund, we will consider whether the scheme has engaged in the Scheme Financial Reconciliation process. We previously told you that you had to engage by 19 July 2019 but we will consider late engagement on a scheme by scheme basis until close of business 1 August 2019. Countdown Bulletin 45 explains how to engage.
Where an engaged scheme is due a refund, we currently expect to issue letters to the address agreed during engagement by the week commencing 23 September 2019. The letters will only show the total amount to be refunded, individual members will not be listed.
Letters for schemes that have previously been accepted into the PPF or the FAS will be sent to the PPF within the same timescales.
A cheque will be sent to the same address as the refund letter by the 28 October 2019. The payee name on our cheque will be the scheme name we hold for your day to day administration unless you’ve provided an alternative payee when you engaged with us.
If you have not engaged with us, your surplus will be retained in the National Insurance Fund.
The cut-off date of 19 July 2019 means that in the unlikely event that HMRC needs to cancel a paid Contributions Equivalent Premium or a Limited Revaluation Premium after this date, then a clerical refund will be issued.
Returned cheques
Following our last refunds exercise in April 2019, we have had a number of cheques returned to us causing a lot of rework for HMRC.
Make sure that you’ve provided HMRC with the correct information so that cheques are accurately issued and can be banked.
The cheques have been returned due to:
- incorrect payee details on HMRC cheques, the payee or ‘payable to’ name shown on HMRC cheques will be the name of the pension scheme or the administrator agreed during the SFR engagement process, if this does not allow you to bank HMRC cheques, you need to provide alternative details
- PSAs who have engaged not communicating with their finance department, cheques have been returned as finance departments are unaware of the Scheme Financial Reconciliation refunds exercise
- PSAs engaging with us in error, cheques have been returned when PSAs find they’re no longer the administrator of the scheme
- PSAs requesting an alternative method of payment, scheme financials can only be returned by cheque
Useful links
Please read HMRC: pension schemes reconciliation services for more information.
Earlier editions of the National Insurance Services to Pension industry: countdown bulletins
Guidance on the end of contracting-out for scheme administrators and trustees HMRC: pension schemes end of contracting-out guidance
Contact details
For general queries about contracted-out pensions please contact the helpline on Telephone: 0300 200 3507.
General queries about the Scheme Reconciliation Service or Scheme Cessation should be made to the Customer Relationship Team at email: CRM.schemereconciliationservice@hmrc.gov.uk