Practical Consultation – Changes to School Pensions

Our practical consultations course has been aligned to the scenario where an independent school wishes to leave the Teachers Pension Scheme. We can align this course to other situations. 

Background

Independent Schools are not automatically enrolled in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS). The school you work for may have opted to join the scheme, as part of their pension requirement or they may have made alternative pension arrangements.

From September 2019 schools faced a significant increase in the level of contributions they were required to pay into the TPS and many are finding ongoing membership commercially unviable and are now looking to implement alternative arrangements.   Schools in the Independent Sector participate in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme voluntarily, consequently they are permitted to leave the scheme at any time.

Changing pension schemes, especially moves to lower cost options often lead to a changes in a the benefits provided to staff at their retirement.  To maintain employee motivation and good will it is important that schools engage pro-actively with union officials and employee representatives.

This one day course is designed to help employee reps understand the background drivers behind the need to withdraw from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, understand the legislation that relates to such changes, together with the general pros and cons that alternative schemes typically offer.  Building on this it considers the role of the employee rep when participating in collective consultations, and liaising with the employees they represent.

Content 

  1. Stock Taking – How we got here and what next 

  • Introduction
  • Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS)
  • September 2019 changes to the TPS
  • Drivers behind the need to change
  • Relationship to employment contracts and state pensions 

2. Key Definitions and Terms 

  • What is a Pension Scheme
  • Pensions Regulator 
  • Pensions Dashboard 
  • Defined Benefits Schemes
    • Final salary
    • Career Average
  • Defined Contribution/Money Purchase Schemes
    • Pension Funds
    • SIPP
    • Annuities
    • Drawdown
  • Deferred Pensions

3. Differing Pensions Schemes Pros and Cons

  • Defined Benefit
  • Defined Contribution

4. The Legal Framework 

  • Pension Enrolment
  • Contracts of Employment
  • Inferred conditions of employment

5. Consultation on Changes to Pension arrangements

  • Changes to contracts of employment – the legal position 
  • Collective consultations

6. Definitions and scope

  • rules, hints, tips 

7. Further resources and support 

8. Action Points 

  • The role of the employee rep in collective consultations 
  • The activities and tasks that reps may be involved in during collective consultations 
  • Signposting skills needed 

9. Skills Development – Hints and Tips

  • Active Listening
  • Assertiveness
  • Communication
  • Presentations and Public Speaking
  • Meetings – planning and process
  • Negotiations – planning and conduct
  • Observation
  • Questioning Techniques
  • Working well with others

More courses for Employee Reps

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Introduction to Role - 3 hour
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Redundancy Training
TUPE Training
"Individual Consultation"
Consultation Good Practice
Practical Consultation - Changes to Contracts
Practical Consultation - Pensions
Pay & Benefit Discussions
Setting Up Employee Representation & Forums

Employee Representation Reference Guides

These guides are provided free of charge to help make your employee representation forum more effective. Our Employee Representation training courses explore and build on these to help you improve quality and effective even further.  

Employee Representation Models

When introducing Employee Representation, the first thing that needs to be considered is the scope and structure that best meets the needs of the business. This guide explores 4 typical structures.

Employee Representation Forum Constitutions

This reference document outlines typical rules & arrangements for effective Employee Representation Forums. It includes hints and tips on employee representation forum structures rules and boundaries

Advocacy Model – 10 tips for Difficult Meetings

In non-unionised organisations employee representatives are often tasked with providing advocacy and mentoring support to staff. These meetings can be complex and demanding. This short article provides 10 useful hints and tips to make any meeting go smoothly

What Makes an Employee Representative Effective?

Employee Representatives are usually elected by the people they represent, the workforce. They are often elected on willingness to stand or popularity. What can the employer do to help them perform well in role and help develop business success.  This guides provides some ideas. 

Employee Representative Role Descriptor

An Employee Representative Role Descriptor Template. To maximise the effectiveness of any Employee Representative it is important that those standing, voting and appointing representatives understand the role and what it involves. The Role Descriptor play a critical part in achieving this.

FAQ Courses - Frequently Asked Questions about our training courses

Answers to common questions about our training courses can be found below.  Our website details our overall base course offer and prices.  Answers to  questions about our courses can be found below.  Answers to questions about Concrew Training as a company can be found on our “about-us” page on our “FAQ” page
 

Our training courses can be aligned to the specific needs of:

  • Human Resources, HR and L&D teams
  • Governors and Trustees
  • Directors and Senior Leaders
  • Managers and team leaders
  • Department Specialists
  • Internal trainers and subject experts
  • The general workforce, specific departments and individuals
  • Businesses and organisations across the UK

Whether you’re upskilling a small team, undergoing change, rolling out training organisation-wide, we can support you.

Our courses are highly participative and interactive. To ensure we involve everyone and cater for each attendees’ individual needs we limit attendance as follows. We can run multiple sessions where attendee numbers need to be higher.

  • Up to 15 people can attend online training courses.
  • Up to 20 people can attend face-to-face “training room” based training courses

Most of our training courses are attributed with 6 face-to-face learning hours. Including breaks, they usually run for about 7 hours.

We can condense most topics into 3 hour sessions.

We can combine and/or extend our courses to create bespoke multi-day programmes for you.

We deliver online courses via our clients’ video conferencing platform, throughout the UK.  Attendees can be based abroad but payment needs to be made by a UK based organisation.

We can deliver face-to-face training on your premises in England, Scotland and Wales.

Yes, we can deliver all our courses online in real time on your video conferencing platform, on a date and at a time that works for you.

We do not offer pre-recorded training.

Yes. We can deliver at your premises, in a training room, office, boardroom, classroom or at a venue organised by you

Yes, we can deliver at weekends, evenings and during night shifts.  This makes our training more accessible for Governors, Trustees and shift workers.

We publish detailed course overviews for all courses. These course overviews are based on the individual course learning plans.

Each course overview outlines indicative content as final content is always based on each individual customer’s own requirements.

Factual content is updated to reflect the very latest developments before each course runs.

Yes. We align final course content to each individual customers’ needs. This includes dovetailing content with your own policies and procedures, when required.

Why should you use Concrew Training?

  • Specialist HR, Employment Law & Compliance training provider
  • We reference to official Government bodies such as ACAS, ICO, EHRC
  • Content tailored to your policies and procedures
  • CPD certificates included
  • 12 months of post-course support
  • UK-wide delivery
  • Online and face-to-face options
  • Open and transparent pricing

Yes. We prefer to do this. Including your  policies and procedures in the training helps us contextualises the learning and improve quality

It makes it easier to demonstrate how, where and why good practice applies.

We do not charge extra for aligning content to your prevailing situation, internal policies and procedures

Yes, of course. We treat all the information you provide as strictly confidential. We only use the information you provide for the specific training assignment/s you book with us

We use a team of subject specialists to deliver the training. They all have in-depth subject knowledge and experience. They are able to answer most questions posed to them, on rare occasions complex or obscure questions may require post course answers. Our subject specialists are also highly experienced trainers, trainers who can make even dull and boring subjects come alive.

Our trainers bring years of industry experience and deliver engaging, interactive sessions that keep participants engaged, involved and learning. Our trainers are subject specialists and able to answer virtually any subject related question.

Yes, we can provide CPD certificates for all our courses. They detail the number of learning hours and headline course content.

Certification is included in all half-day and one-day courses, it is an optional extra for 60/90 minute lectures.

Our customers and clients say things like:

We recommend our training is booked 2 to 3 months in advance. We only reserve dates against form bookings. Availability decreases with time.

During quieter periods we may have a very limited amount of short term, 2-week or less, lead time availability.

You are required to:

  • Provide the video conferencing platform (Teams/Zoom etc) or training room
  • Provide all the equipment, including a laptop for the trainer, when the training is delivered face-to-face on your premises or similar
  • Issue invites to all parties
  • To print/distribute materials and CPD certificates from PDF files we supply*

*Most materials can be distributed electronically

  • We are a specialist HR, Employment Law & Compliance training provider
  • We reference to official Government bodies such as ACAS, ICO, EHRC
  • Content can be tailored to your prevailing needs, inhouse policies and procedures
  • CPD certificates are included
  • 12 months of post-course support is provided
  • We offer UK-wide delivery
  • we have online and face-to-face options available
  • Our pricing is open and transparent 

Our training is high quality and budget friendly. We charge the same price for all topics.

Our prices include reasonable alignment to your specific needs, your inhouse polices and procedures.

Our prices vary according to training location, the number of attendees, and payment terms. Our prices page gives full information.

Please complete our quote form.  This form captures the key information we need to provide a quote and answer any related questions you may have. 

Our prices page and Company FAQ Page may also be of help