Offering USS as a Pension Option 

Most post-92 institutions have a statutory obligation to provide TPS to teaching staff. In some cases, employers offer USS to staff who were members of USS at their previous employer immediately prior to joining their employment, and who wish to retain USS membership.

It is possible to request to expand USS membership, or request to join for the first time, to be able to offer USS to all eligible employees.

However, in thinking about offering USS as an option, it’s crucial to consider:

• Any impact extended USS participation may have.
• How will you communicate the choice clearly and accurately to avoid misleading employees?

1. Offering USS
2. How Mercer can help
3. One-to-one support provided by financial education consultants/advisers
4. Find out more: Free demonstration focussed guidance session

To be able to offer USS as an option, you need to apply to USS to be a full participating employer. You’d need to demonstrate that you’ll be able to meet USS’s contribution requirements on an ongoing sustainable basis.

Then, if accepted, Academic and Academic-Comparable employees would be USS eligible. However, any statutory schemes (i.e. TPS and the Local Government Pension Scheme) will take precedence over USS eligibility.

But, care is needed with any new joiners in a USS eligible role if they don’t have a statutory right to join another pension scheme as they will be USS eligible only.

Offering members the option to move to USS currently means lower contributions for members and employers.

USS could mean a pension lower than TPS, but provides members with more disposable income now and the possibility of greater flexibility at retirement.

So, how does a member know what might be the best option for them? 

How can you offer the option without potentially misleading members?

Beware of simple statements of “value” that indicate one is “more valuable” than the other.    

Our team have deep experience in the higher education sector and have implemented this change for a number of institutions. 

We have a team of experts in the sector who have developed a range of support materials and solutions that can be tailored to your circumstances, (including consideration of an incentivised scheme if applicable), to help you implement this change to offer USS as an option to those in, or eligible for TPS.

As well as supporting in planning your strategy to be able to offer USS, our range of member communications can be selected and delivered by our specialists directly to your members, educating them on their retirement benefit options. 

Our one-to-one support ranges from general guidance with financial education consultants to financial advice provided by chartered financial planners – all specialising in Higher Education pension schemes.

We offer three levels of one-to-one support with a range of member communication materials that can be tailored to suit your needs. These levels are

• General guidance sessions
• Focussed guidance sessions
• Financial advice

We are offering all institutions a free demonstration of a focussed guidance session to take you through what a member would experience and receive from a session going through the modelling.