Before retiring this September, Stephen Hitchings worked in schools for more than 30 years. The 56-year-old worked in secondary schools – teaching PE – for two decades, before going on to work in a number of special schools.
Retirement is usually a time for relaxing but, for the past few months, Mr Hitchings has been involved in a battle. He is missing £500 a year from his pension and is determined to get it back.
The reason for the problem is that when he retired, an error on the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) records says that he was not working for an entire academic year – when in fact he was.
He had corrected missing parts of his service history before but, on this occasion, was spurred on to look back into the issue after reading an article about missing teachers’ pensions in i.
He has written to the school, its payroll provider Capita, his MP in Kent and the TPS itself to try to fix the error and, although he has now finally got the missing employment added, he still has not received the additional money.
“If you’re a teacher, a major part of your pay is your pension. And so if you’re missing that pay, you’re missing something really important” he told i.
He is correct. The TPS is a generous ‘defined benefit’ scheme, which means that, for each year you work, you are given a set amount of cash annually in retirement. Teachers get 1/57th of their pensionable earnings each year in retirement, meaning a teacher on the average classroom salary of £39,000 would get £684 – in today’s money – for every year worked. This means missing just a single year of contributions could cost a teacher well above £10,000 in retirement.
Mr Hitchings thinks the money he is losing will total above £500 per year – and he wants it put right and the pay backdated until September, when he retired.
He also does not think he is alone. “Talking to friends, I’ve had colleagues who have had massive problems with this and I think it’s widespread,” he said.
“I spoke to a friend at the weekend who had two years missing and I’ve even spoken to one colleague who thinks they are missing five years. She’s tried to get it corrected but the school won’t and she can’t find evidence. It’s delayed her retirement,” he said.
He explained that correcting the record can sometimes involve having P60s and payslips from around the time the employment is missing.
“Most don’t have that, so it can be difficult to claim,” he said.
“I’m not saying this is deliberate, but if people don’t persist with chasing, they don’t get their money. I fear for those who don’t have the time or resources to chase,” he said.
And so, with so many of his friends – as well as his wife – being teachers, he is determined to spread the word about the problem.
“The more people who know, the more people will get back what they’re owed and entitled to,” he said.
On its website, the TPS says that those finding errors should contact the relevant employer and get them to update the record.
Capita has now updated Mr Hitchings’ record after confirmation of his role and length of service from his previous employer, which it had to receive before it could do so.
The Department for Education said that if a pension is changed after it starts being paid, the change is usually backdated to the time it started being paid.