30 May 2012
Letter to active members of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine Pension and
Assurance Scheme (the “Scheme”)
Transfer to the Superannuation Arrangements of the Universi ty of London (“SAUL”)
Introduction
This letter is written on behalf of the Scheme Trustee (the Trustee) and is addressed to you as an active member of the Scheme.
This letter contains important information about your benefits in the Scheme, which are to be transferred to SAUL.
What must I do?
The SAUL trustee has agreed that you may accrue future pensionable service in SAUL, with effect on and from 30 June 2012 based on the SAUL rules applicable at 29 June 2012, subject to completing and returning the SAUL joining form. You are required to complete the attached joiners form, and to return this to Miss Fenella Needham, Pensions Manager,
Human Resources, by 15 June 2012 to confirm that you wish to accrue future pensionable service in SAUL and transfer your past service to SAUL on the basis outlined in the Guide.
What if I do nothing?
If you decide not to join SAUL as an active member by completing and returning the necessary application from by 15 June 2012 then this Announcement is the formal notice to you that all of the assets and liabilities of the Scheme including your benefit entitlement will transfer to SAUL with effect on and from 30 June 2011 and you will become a deferred member of SAUL with your benefits converted onto a SAUL basis.
Background to the transfer
You were sent a letter dated 29 March 2012 explaining UCL’s proposals in detail to transfer your accrued benefits to SAUL together with a Guide. The Guide provided a comparison of the benefits of the Scheme with those in SAUL. In that letter you were informed of the commencement of the 60-day consultation period and invited to submit your response to
UCL. That consultation came to an end on 28 May 2012.
The Trustee has since then been discussing with UCL, UCL's proposals, including the responses from members and the trades unions arising from the consultation.
UCL has notified the Trustee that based on these discussions and the consultation responses, it is minded to ask the Trustee to make the proposed bulk transfer.
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The Trustee has considered UCL’s transfer proposal carefully and taken independent legal and actuarial advice. The Trustee will be entering into a transfer agreement and obtaining from the Scheme Actuary a Transformation Certificate which certifies that the transfer credits in SAUL are at least equal in value to the rights transferred and the Certificate will cover all active, deferred and pensioner members so no member's consent to the transfer of their past service benefits is required.
Following these considerations, the Trustee of the Scheme has decided to proceed with entering into the transfer agreement and subject to the conditions in the agreement being met the transfer of benefits to SAUL in accordance with the proposals set out in the consultation letter and Guide dated 29 March 2012, which has the agreement of UCL will take place.
The merger is planned to take place with effect from 30 June 2012. From that date, SAUL will have responsibility for providing the benefits you accrued while an active member of the
Scheme, and in respect of which you have received details of the service credit to be awarded in SAUL, as calculated by the Scheme actuary. More details about SAUL are on its website.
The proposals in brief
The broad aims of the proposed transfer of Scheme benefits into SAUL are:
1. To maintain the value of past service benefits that Scheme members have built up to date.
2. To continue to provide a good pension scheme for active Scheme members which is administered to a high standard but at a reasonable cost.
3. To provide a long-term, sustainable pensions solution for employees and UCL.
About the transfer
1. From 30 June 2012, you will no longer earn future service pension benefits via the
Scheme. Instead, if you sign the joining form, you will become an active member of
SAUL for the purposes of your future pension provision, with the administration of your future service benefits operating through SAUL.
2. The benefits that you will earn as a member of SAUL will be calculated in accordance with the SAUL scheme rules. As with your existing Scheme, your pension will continue to be linked to your ‘final salary’, and you will continue to enjoy valuable benefits provided for your family/dependants in the event of your death.
3. The benefits that you have already earned in th e Scheme will be ‘converted’ (as part of the transfer) so that they can be administered on the SAUL benefit basis and the provision of death benefits will be on the SAUL benefits basis which was summarised in the benefits comparison table contained in the Guide enclosed with the letter of 29
March 2012. Due to the differences in the benefit structures of the Scheme and
SAUL, the amount of pensionable service, as calculated by the Scheme actuary, that you will be credited with in SAUL will differ from the pensionable service you have built-up in the Scheme. The value of your overall benefits however will be broadly equivalent, calculated by the Scheme actuary on the basis of reasonably prudent assumptions for the future.
4. Your benefits will be transferred into SAUL on the basis of a bulk transfer (as will the benefits for all other members of the Scheme, including deferred members and pensioners). This means that the value of your pensionable benefits in the Scheme will be transferred to SAUL, and SAUL will assume the obligations attaching to all pensionable service, both prior to the transfer as well as after the transfer.
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Next steps
You should return the SAUL joiners form no later than 15 June 2012 to be accepted as an active member of SAUL. Failure to do so will be taken as an indication that you do not wish to take up active membership of SAUL, and your past service benefits will be treated as deferred benefits from the transfer date of
30 June 2012, and will be administered by SAUL accordingly.
Subject to the provisions of SAUL rules at the time, and dependent upon your salary grading at the time, you may be able to join SAUL in the future, but your future pension benefits would accrue on a career average basis, and the benefits you transferred into SAUL from the Scheme will not be linked to your final salary.
Letter of intent
Any Letter of Intent form that you have completed in the Scheme will be transferred to
SAUL. If you would like to take this opportunity to update this form please complete the attached.
Your Personal Data
As a part of the merger, the Trustee will transfer all of the Scheme's data to SAUL so that
SAUL can administer your benefits. As such we will transfer all of the personal data we hold in respect of you to the trustee of SAUL.
The SAUL trustee will hold and process all personal data to enable it to calculate and administer your pension benefits and it has they have a legitimate interest and legal obligation to do so. Any such processing will comply fully with the requirements of the Data
Protection Act 1998.
AVCs
If you have paid additional voluntary (AVCs) to the Scheme we will write to you separately about the options which will apply to those AVCs.
Further information
During the course of the consultation, UCL maintained a Frequently Asked Questions page on its web site, which can be accessed at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/pensions/scheme_rfh/RFS_FAQs_220512.pdf
If you have any further questions, please contact Miss Fenella Needham, Pensions
Manager, Human Resources (extn: 41243 or by e-mail: f.needham@ucl.ac.uk).
Yours sincerely
Jack Foster
Director – Special Projects for and on behalf of the Trustee of the Scheme
Enc : SAUL joiners form and letter of intent re death benefits
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