Employer Guide - alpha Transition

All active members of the CSPS in your employment, who are not currently enrolled in the alpha scheme, must be enrolled into alpha on 1 April 2022. This excludes members of partnership, those who have opted out or other pension schemes outside of the CSPS.

As part of the implementation of alpha, employers were asked to design and implement a tapered enrolment process.

This allowed employers to move members into alpha, dependent on age, every two months from 1 June 2015 through to 1 February 2022.

You may have a third-party software provider/payroll bureau/shared service which currently moves members into alpha as part of your tapered enrolment process.

If you have a bulk process to move members into alpha on 1 April 2022, you may need to consider raising a service/change request with your third-party provider.

The tapered enrolment process is an existing and established solution which is currently used to migrate members with tapered protection into the alpha scheme. The use of this process will extend to enable you to move fully protected members into alpha from 1 April 2022.

Information on this process can be found in the Interface support materials:

• Full Interface Developers Guide (Section 4.7)
• Standard Interface Developers Guide (Section 3.9)
• Standard and Manual Interface Payroll Scenarios (Section 5)

If you need a copy of these documents, email interfaceteam@mycsp.co.uk

The Interface support materials (listed above) will explain which dates to apply to records for members in-scope for moving into alpha. Please ensure you review this guidance in line with when you normally share data with MyCSP.

New data validations will be implemented on the Interface to provide warnings and rejections to Employers, should you issue any PCSPS member data that relates to the period on or after 1 April 2022. We’re aiming to provide detailed guidance on the enhancements made to data validations by the end of January 2022.

If you are a New Fair Deal employer who has accepted members through a compulsory transfer, you will need to ensure you have all the information you need before members are transferred across to your employment. This may involve engaging with the Contracting Authority to ensure they provide an employment history. Visit the New Fair Deal pages on the CSPS website for more information.

Please note the waiving of restrictions on purchasing added pension by lump sum during the first year of scheme membership - members in the Fully Protected Group who are being moved into alpha on 1 April 2022 will be allowed to do this.

PCSPS members who are moving on 1 April 2022 will be able to opt to purchase alpha periodic Added Pension in their first 3 months of alpha membership, and have the purchase backdated to 1 April 2022.

Further information about purchasing added pension before 1 April 2022 can be found in EPN 643 which contains an annex with information that can be supplied to members.

In addition, the ‘Moving to alpha’ we page contains some information for members about added pension.

Here are some resources to signpost members to:

• 2015 Remedy pages
• Specific information for members moving to alpha on 1 April 2022
• alpha scheme guide
• Live@Lunch sessions
• Am I affected tool

Please ensure members are signposted to information about their new scheme benefits under alpha, which can be found in the alpha scheme guide and webpages listed above.

EPN 642 was also issued on 29 November 2021, which advises employers that MyCSP is issuing a letter to fully protected members between December 2021-February 2022, in line with employers’ distribution requirements.

We’ll provide employers with a list of fully protected members, which will indicate when they will receive their letters.

A copy of the letter is available in Annex A on the EPN webpage.