NAHT applauds the contribution of school leaders, teachers and other public service workers, acknowledging the challenging nature of their work and their entitlement to a decent quality of life in retirement.
Yet for the last decade, teachers’ and school leaders’ pay has fallen in real terms every year. At the same time, the value and benefit of the pension schemes have been undermined, meaning that teachers and leaders have had to pay more for their pensions but will receive less benefit from them.
We know that the overall reward package does have an important impact, and the erosion of this is clearly adding to the recruitment and retention crisis facing the sector today.
NAHT remains opposed to any attempts to make school leaders work longer, pay more and get less. This includes:
- Opposition to the acceleration of further increases to the state pension age, and the linking of state pension age to the teachers’ pension schemes (TPS) and the local government pension scheme (LGPS)
- Opposition to tiering arrangements in the teachers’ pension scheme contributions that disadvantage school leaders and to increases that are only applied to leadership contributions.
Our key areas of focus
NAHT currently has three key areas of focus it is working on in relation to members’ pensions across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Crown dependencies.
- Age discrimination in public sector pensions
- The pause on pension benefits
- Independent schools
You can find out further detail on work underway in specific locations by contacting your local branches and/or policy@naht.org.uk
Information on our latest funding campaigning, which includes our work to ensure sufficient long-term funding to cover increases to employer pension costs, can be found here.
A really good starting point to learn more about your pension is the suite of factsheets that NAHT has produced. These deal with the key areas which are relevant to members such as early retirement, flexibilities that can add more to your pension and ill-health retirement. Currently these factsheets do not include the impact of McCloud – as soon as that becomes clear we will add an additional factsheet explaining its impact and what it may mean for you.
You can find these by clicking the link here.
Useful links
NAHT Personal Financial Services
The Teachers’ Pensions (England and Wales) website
The Teachers' Pension Scheme (Northern Ireland) website (search for 'Teaching staff')
The Teachers’ Pension Scheme (Isle of Man) website
Information about survivor benefits
Further information from Teachers’ Pensions about the McCloud remedy
Further information from Teachers’ Pensions about the independent school consultation
First published 14 August 2020