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Employer Knowledge Article

EPN735 - 2024/25 Annual Assurance Statements (AAS) exercise

Audience

  • Accounting officers

  • Chief executive officers

  • Finance directors

  • Finance managers

  • Pension leads

Summary

  • This EPN provides information about this year’s Annual Assurance Statement (AAS) process.

  • Every participating Civil Service employer of the Civil Service Pension scheme (“the Scheme”) must ensure that they carry out their responsibilities in relation to the administration of the scheme. You can find these responsibilities in the Participation or Admission Agreement, which employers must sign.

  • Both Civil Service and New Fair Deal employers must complete the Annual Assurance Statement (AAS). If you are a Civil Service employer, your Accounting Officer (AO) must complete the AAS. If you are a New Fair Deal employer, your Chief Executive Officer (CEO) must complete the AAS.

  • The AAS helps the Civil Service Pension Scheme’s AO conduct their obligations to the Scheme, as outlined below.

  • To ensure that the internal controls and operational processes of participating employers are robust and conducted in accordance with participation and admission agreements

  • To confirm that your AO (if you are a Civil Service employer) or CEO (if you are a New Fair Deal employer) has undertaken the following obligations to the Scheme with appropriate care and due diligence:

    • to remind employers of their role and responsibilities in relation to the Scheme; and

    • to highlight areas of risk, where we would expect employers to focus their assurance.

  • We do not intend for the AAS to either provide a detailed assessment of process performance, nor duplicate reporting conducted elsewhere.

Detail

We will shortly be issuing the 2024/25 AAS to the individual(s) responsible for completing your organisation’s AAS, in accordance with our records. The steps below explain how to complete the AAS.

  • Step 1: Read the pop-up guidance on the AAS questionnaire as you answer the questions. You can find further assistance on answering the questions in the AAS FAQs.

  • Step 2: Complete the Declaration section of the AAS - your organisation’s AO (if you are a Civil Service employer) or CEO (if you are a New Fair Deal employer) will need to do this.

  • Step 3: Sign the Declaration section with either a wet (handwritten) or electronic signature. If you are not providing a wet signature, please include an email from your CEO/AO to show they have agreed to the contents of the questionnaire.

  • Step 4: Send the signed Declaration electronically, along with the completed AAS to the AAS2025 mailbox byFriday 18 July 2025.

When submitting your AAS, please note:

  1. We will not accept an incomplete AAS

  2. We will mark your AAS as late if you provide it after Friday 18 July 2025

  3. You must include your organisation’s name in the AAS and Declaration file names.

    1. If you have not received your AAS by Friday 6 June 2025, please email the AAS2025 mailbox.

    2. The Scheme Administrator at the time of this EPN (MyCSP) is responsible for issuing and managing AAS returns to enable us to focus on analysing the results and related actions arising from the submission of assurances.

Changes to this year’s process

  • We have made the following improvements to this year’s AAS process:

  • To support the transition for the Civil Service Pensions scheme administration to Capita Business Services (Capita), we would like to hear about any concerns or issues that you may have.

  • We will be requesting details of any large-scale pieces of work which may be occurring over the remaining transition period, and early in the contract commencement. 

  • We are continuing to accept the digital completion of the AAS to support employers’ flexible working practices

  • We have simplified the questionnaire to make it easier to complete

  • We’ve built enhanced validations into the questionnaire to advise when further information and supporting documentation is required

  • We’ve included specific guidance for each question in the FAQs on the Civil Service Pension Scheme website.

  • If, after reading the FAQs, you have any questions about this year’s AAS process, please email the AAS2025 mailbox.

Contacts

You can find electronic copies of the Employer Pension Guide, all current EPNs and forms in the Employer section of the Civil Service Pensions website at www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk

This notice is for employers and should not be issued to scheme members.

Members can find information about their pension by visiting the scheme website.