Statement of Pensions Policy

The University offers the following workplace pension schemes. These have been confirmed as qualifying schemes, which means they meet or exceed the government’s standards. The employer and employee both pay into these schemes.

Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS)

This is a national scheme for staff employed on academic and academic-related scales of pay (generally grades 6 and above).

University of Oxford Staff Pension Scheme (OSPS)

This is the University’s scheme for those of its staff who are on scales of pay for support staff (generally grades 1 – 5). The scheme is also open to similar employees of colleges and other institutions that participate in the scheme.

National Employment Savings Trust (NEST)

This is a national scheme.  The University will enrol in this scheme workers who are eligible for automatic enrolment or who ask to join a qualifying scheme.

When there is a change in a worker’s status (for example, an employee is promoted above grade 5, or a casual worker is recruited to a position as an employee) the appropriate scheme will be that which is applicable to the new position or status.

The University also participates in certain other schemes in respect of specific employees in exceptional circumstances. The main example is the National Health Service Pension Scheme (NHSPS). This is a national scheme for NHS employees. The only university staff who participate in this scheme are those who are employed in a clinical role and were active members of the NHSPS immediately before their employment by the University.

Any employee or worker who is a member of a University pension scheme pays personal contributions to the pension scheme in accordance with the rules, as amended from time to time, of the pension scheme. Personal contributions are usually collected by the University by way of deductions from employees’ salaries and paid over to the relevant pension scheme, together with any employer’s contribution.

Employees who join USS or OSPS, save for those who are earning close to the National Insurance contributions lower earnings limit, are automatically enrolled into Salary Exchange from the date of joining the pension scheme for OSPS members and from three full months after the date of joining the pension scheme for USS members, unless they give notice in writing to the Payroll Manager that they do not wish to be enrolled. In this case, the appropriate opt-out form should be completed and returned to the Payroll Manager. The Salary Exchange opt-out form can be obtained from departmental administrators, or is available to download from the Salary Exchange website.

Eligible employees may change their decision annually on 1 April or if they experience a ‘life change’ event. Examples include marriage, divorce, or an employee’s spouse or partner becoming redundant or pregnant.

Under Salary Exchange, the deduction for an employee’s personal pension contributions is reduced to nil. At the same time the employee’s pensionable salary is reduced by an amount equal to the employee’s pension contributions and the University increases its contributions to the pension scheme by an equivalent amount. Pensionable salary and pension scheme benefits for the employee are not reduced. Salary Exchange enables participating employees to achieve a reduction to their National Insurance contributions. Salary Exchange may not be of benefit to employees in USS whose initial contract is for less than two years and who are expecting a refund of pension contributions at the end of the contract.

Employees who do not participate in Salary Exchange will continue to pay to the applicable pension scheme the personal contributions as described above.