West Yorkshire Pension Fund<\/a> advisory panel, told the meeting it was \u201cincorrect\u201d to say that academies were treated unfairly.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI can understand the notion that you want to see the different employers and people delivering the same thing having a similar pension contribution \u2013 but that\u2019s not how it works. The majority of LGPS pension funds do this in the same way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf academy schools pay less in contributions now than the actuary recommends, when the calculation is done again in three years\u2019 time they will need to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noting that contributions for the Teachers\u2019 Pension Scheme (TPS) are 28.7 per cent, Thornton added: \u201cBe careful what you wish for.\u201d<\/p>\n
A West Yorkshire Pension Fund spokesperson stressed that it tries to treat all employers participating \u201cconsistently and fairly\u201d, with contribution rates falling by \u201c2.1 per cent for the vast majority of academy trusts\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Cheshire \u2018precedent\u2019<\/p>\n
Leaders in West Yorkshire have also pointed to changes made to the Cheshire Pension Fund. It was approached last year to \u201calign employer contribution rates for academies with those of local authority-maintained schools\u201d. The proposal was approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the time, academies were paying 20.9 per cent on average, with levels ranging from 13.8 per cent to 36.8 per cent between individual schools. Maintained schools contributed between 20 and 23.7 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Cheshire West and Chester Council spokesperson said: \u201cUnder the new approach, most academies will see their rates reduce to 18 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
DfE calls<\/p>\n
In Buckinghamshire, leaders have also questioned plans for academies to pay employer contributions of 21.1 per cent, down from 22.1 per cent in 2025-26.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They think rates should have dropped further as the pension fund is now in surplus, having been in deficit the last time contributions were reviewed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One leader, who asked not to be named, said: \u201cWith the pay awards for staff and a 2 per cent \u2013 if you are lucky \u2013 increase in funding, all schools may have to cut staff, cut curriculum, cut teaching, cut learning support at a time of massive change in the inclusion agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA saving in contributions to pensions would have helped mitigate these issues significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trusts believe council rules preventing pension contribution changes of more than one percentage point have prevented the rates from dropping further.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Consistent\u2019 approach<\/p>\n
Robert Carington, Buckinghamshire\u2019s pension fund committee chair, said the move was \u201cconsistent with the approach taken that has enabled the academy pool to move into a small surplus\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His \u201cpriority is to maintain that surplus and ensure the stability of employer contributions\u201d, particularly with \u201cwhat is currently a difficult geo-political period\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boyle added: \u201cFor many years, academies have had very little knowledge of the workings of the pension funds in which they participate and have often felt overwhelmed by the technicalities of the schemes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we are increasingly seeing academy trusts actively engaging with pension funds and relevant professional advisors to understand and, in some cases, appropriately challenge pension funds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More from this theme Recent articles Trust bosses are lobbying council chiefs to cut \u201cunfair\u201d support staff pension…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,50,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-498485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-news","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}