Is this correct- NHS Backpay and pension arrears

[FuckinHooray]

I have totally missed all the chat about pension arrears having such an effect on the back pay (but have been reading all about it in Twitter today!)

I am at the bottom of band 5 and had my
payslip this morning. I received back pay off £587 but have paid £307 of this in pension arrears? SURELY this cannot be correct. I have emailed payroll but they have a 5 day turn around and no phone number.

Can someone tell me of this is right? I was probably naive but I thought I’d see at least a couple of hundred quid extra this morning but the arrears combined with the increased tax/NI/student loan/pension this month means I’m barely 20 quid better off this month than last. Very depressing

It may well be right unfortunately. I know people who have ended off worse off despite the pay rise because of the new pension calculations. I think they’re band 5 too

I'm public sector but not nhs. My 'pay increase' has resulted in a significant decrease in my pay packet. Its horrendous and no one can do anything about it. I've messaged the pensions arbitrator. We've been told there may well be another 'increase decrease' in the next financial year due to the same issue. Its so bonkers and so upsetting.

Sounds like it could be right unfortunately.

Many of us are in the same position and short of leaving the nhs pension scheme which is unlikely to be a wise move there doesn’t seem to be anything that we can do about it.,

Sounds about right. Sometimes a small payrise puts you in the next band for pension contributions so you end up with a pay cut. It’s ridiculous and incredibly frustrating.

Mine said pension refund and i got about £600 more so Im not sure really.

It's most likely your pension contributions have increased at the same time as you should have got the pay rise as this is what happened to me earlier this year. It sucks!

You could try writing to the pensions arbitrator. It's all a big fucking mess.

It's likely to be true. Lots of people have experienced similar unfortunately.

Its quite possible for a pay increase to push you into a new contribution band and result in a lower payment. It happens quite often with settlement monies in the context of equal pay litigation. People push for a higher gross payment and it means they end up with a lower net payment because they've moved into a higher contribution band.

From my staff intranet:

'Band 5 salary uplift from £25655 snd 7.10% pension contribution to £27055 and 9.3% pension contribution.

This means that your backdated pay award arrears will be offset against the increase in your pension contribution and as a result your pay award arrears may not be as much as you were expecting. '

NHS here. We had an email to say that the pay "award" may have pushed some into a different pension bracket in terms of contributions.

I have also had pensions arrears - it basically means that due to the higher salary your contribution should have been higher from your salary.

As the others said, you’re in the new pension bracket. I think it’s outrageous.
I hope you’re in the union and have voted to strike.

These pension brackets should be rising too!!

Yes it's likely to be correct. Bands 5, 7 snd 8b all quite badly hit by the significant step changes in pension contributions.

Unlike tax where the steps only apply to the salary above a certain level, in the NHS pension scheme when you move to a higher band if applied to your whole pay.

The changes to pension bands coming next year should reduce the likelihood of this happening in the future by smoothing the steps to 1% increases at a time rather than the 2%+ that are in place at the moment

Band 4 here.
Nhs pension gone from 7.1% to 9.3%
But from what I think I understand it's only for this month then next month we go down to the correct 8.8% (?)
I had £1157 in deductions and £100 difference in my pay.
They took £85 student loan even though I opted for the £25k and above.

Yes I've heard that bands 5 and 8a were negatively affected - a colleague of mine at the bottom of 8a received less pay this month due to all the various increases 🙄

I'm a band 3 and we're affected too. Got about £480 extra, went up in pension from 5.6 to 7.1, lost about £190 in pension back pay. So yea, it's great. After paying my car service and mot last month I've been left with 42p

It's wank.
Plus we will just have the public moaning at us more as the raise wasn't all from the government. Some came from nhs England. Less money for services.

Yes, it is entirely possible, happened to my manager last year because of the pension bandings.

Payroll will be able to explain it but in the meantime have a quick google, I'm sure there's a chart somewhere that shows how pension bandings are calculated now based on actual earnings rather than full time equivalent earnings.

Also be aware the pension contribution percentages are also due to change shortly so if you're currently paying 9.3% it'll be 9.8%, with bigger differences at different levels.

Sorry it's sideways. Letter I got regarding pension changes
Which seems to be totally different to the paper the gov put out in February

Sorry I've got myself mixed up.

Payroll have emailed me back to ask ‘what exactly’ I am looking for clarification on 🤔Another band 5 on my team has paid £54 in pension arrears? So I have absolutely no idea what is going on

Has it actually put you in the next pension band? That might be why it's so much if it's put you from 7.1%- 9.3%.
It's happened to a lot of staff in our Trust and apparently they won't alter the pension banding again until April so it's not gone down well.

This happened to a lot of colleagues last year. Do you work regular nights or weekends? That may account for the discrepancy between you and your colleague.