STSS Updates

Minimum age for premature retirement

From 6 April 2010, the Teachers’ Superannuation (Scotland) Regulations will only allow employers to award premature retirement benefits to scheme members who have attained age 55.

Scheme members who joined the STSS on or after 30 June 2006 are already precluded from being awarded premature retirement before age 55.

From 6 April 2010, in all cases, premature retirement benefits can only be awarded if the scheme member has attained age 55 on the date the pensionable or excluded employment terminates.

Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) is holding employer's seminars in our conference room at Tweedbank, Galashiels on 3,4 & 9 February 2010.

The purpose of the seminars is to provide employer's with an overview of areas of the Scottish Teacher Superannuation Scheme that have been updated, or that employers may be less familiar with.

This will include:

• ill-health retirement
• early retirement
• payroll queries

Initial invitations have been sent by e-mail on 10 November.  If you have not received an invite and are interested in attending, please e-mail Shelley.Hardie@scotland.gsi.gov.uk with the number of places required and your preferred date.

SPPA are in the process of preparing the 2009 STSS annual Benefit Statements for those teachers in service as at 31 March 2009 and whose employers had submitted the relevant 2008 / 2009 annual returns within the required timescale. We currently plan to issue the Benefit Statements to the relevant employers near the end of November 2009 and it will be for them to forward these to all appropriate staff.

Should you need an estimate of your pension benefits, we would ask that you to wait until the Benefit Statements have been issued by your employer. If you urgently require an estimate for a specific reason then please write to the SPPA to request one. Should you not have received a Benefit Statement by the end of January 2010 from your employer, please contact them directly in the first instance to enquire about this. If your employer confirms there has not been a statement supplied to them on your behalf, please write to the SPPA quoting your Superannuation number to request a statement if you require one.

The STSS Members Guide has recently been updated and can be viewed and downloaded from the Forms and Guides page of the Teachers section of this website.

If you would like a hard copy of this guide please email the Teachers Service section, givng your name and full address at Teachersservice@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or alternatively call the Agency on 01896 893000 and ask for Teachers Service.