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If you are a new employee of the University of South Wales, the pension scheme offered to you is provided by Teachers Pensions.
If you are an employee of Professional and Support Services Limited, the pension scheme offered to you is the FlexHE Scheme, provided by Aviva.
If you are an existing employee of the University of South Wales, the pension scheme offered to you is provided by the Local Government Pension Scheme. This scheme is closed to new employees.
Your Pension
Open to new employees of the University of South Wales.
On the Teachers Pensions homepage you will find all information in relation to the Scheme, including:
Open to new employees of Professional and Support Services Limited (PSS Ltd).
Pension contributions
The default contribution levels are:
| Employee contribution | Employer Contribution |
|---|---|
| 3% | 6% |
You also have the option to pay a higher contribution, with the employer’s contribution matched to reflect that, choosing from:
| Employee contribution | Employer Contribution |
|---|---|
| 4% | 7% |
| 5% | 8% |
| 6% | 9% |
| 7% | 10% |
| 8% | 11% |
| 9% | 12% |
These additional contributions can only be chosen in whole percentile points, to a maximum of 9% employee contribution.
You can choose the option to pay a higher contribution.
Salary sacrifice
You have the option of salary sacrifice as part of this pension scheme. This is a tax-efficient way for you to make pension contributions: you give up part of your salary to pay into your pension (your sacrifice), which PSS Ltd pays into your scheme, along with the employer’s contribution. As your salary is then effectively lower, you pay lower income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs).
- The company has committed to a number of safeguards to support colleagues. These include maintaining a notional (reference) salary equivalent to pre-sacrifice pay, which will be used for the calculation of family-related pay (including maternity, adoption, shared parental and paternity leave etc.), life insurance/Critical Illness Cover benefits, and redundancy payments. In addition, Payroll controls are in place to ensure that salary sacrifice arrangements do not reduce earnings below statutory thresholds, thereby protecting eligibility for statutory payments such as statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory shared parental pay, and statutory redundancy pay.
- If you join the Aviva pension, as a Defined Benefit scheme, and leave the scheme in the first two years, you may not be able to receive a refund of your contributions as any salary sacrifice contributions would count as employer contributions. If you join the scheme and leave it after more than 30 days membership you won’t have the option of a refund and the contributions will remain in the pot for your retirement.
- A lower salary may affect the amount of money you are able to borrow for a mortgage (which is usually calculated on the basis of a multiple of your salary).
Note: you cannot use salary sacrifice if it would reduce your earnings below the Living Wage.
If you want to opt-out of Salary Sacrifice, you’ll be able to arrange this with Aviva directly once you’ve been enrolled.
Critical Illness Cover
All new PSS Ltd colleagues will be automatically enrolled into Aviva’s critical illness cover. If you wish to opt out please contact [email protected]
- The cover pays a lump sum of 1 x annual salary upon diagnosis of qualifying critical illness.
- The cover is treated as a taxable benefit in kind and will be taxed through payroll each month based on its monthly value.
- The benefit will cease upon reaching a state pension age.
Further information about Aviva's Critical Illness Cover is available on their webpage.
Life Assurance
Group life assurance cover is immediate and automatic for all employees of Professional Support Services Limited (the Company) who join the Pension Scheme at their first opportunity to do so.
Life Assurance Scheme
This document was provided by Aviva, and is available only in English.
Bereavement counselling and probate helpline guide
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