Thousands of teachers are facing “devastating” shortfalls in their pensions as a result of administration blunders.
Scores of teachers learned pension payments going back up to 30 years ago are missing from official records.
The Department for Education, which runs Teachers’ Pension Scheme, says it is impossible to calculate the scale of the crisis – thought to involve missed payments potentially totalling tens of millions.
Shadow Schools Minister Margaret Greenwood warned: “This has the potential to be devastating for thousands of teachers. We need urgent action to get to grips with this issue and ensure every teacher receives the pension that they are entitled to.”
Around two millions retired, former and current teachers have paid into the state-backed scheme. And a poll by education app Teacher Tapp found that two in five teachers who checked their pensions discovered errors.
Teachers are enrolled in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme the day they start work. They pay contributions out of their salary, as do employers. The Government also contributes in the form of tax relief.
Ten years of missing service for a teacher retiring on a salary of £40,000 equates to £50,000, or £5,000 a year.
Suffolk head Paul Seeman, 42, discovered his 18 years of service had three gaps and was six months short.
He said: “It is easy for these to be missed for some time until you start to look at your pension in more detail.”
Schools, trusts and local authorities, acting as employers, are supposed to pass a payment record to the TPS, which logs the information on a teacher’s pension statement.
Errors have arisen either because the employer has not sent the information to TPS or TPS has not recorded it accurately.
Teachers are struggling to find information from schools that closed or outsourced HR functions, or those rebranded as academies. Others have been told former employers do not hold their records any longer to comply with data protection rules.
In response to a freedom of information request from news outlet Schools Week, the Department for Education said it was impossible to calculate the extent of inaccuracies and employers were responsible for giving correct information.
A spokesman said: “In the very limited circumstances it may no longer be possible for an employee to make contact with a previous employer, the Teacher Pension Scheme will be able to assist directly.”
Abigail Chadd, 35, from Manchester, runs tuition service A Level Revision UK, having taught in state schools for 13 years.
She noticed a six-month pension gap after moving to a new school eight years ago and was promised the issue had been addressed.
But upon checking her pension recently she noticed her entitlement was still missing.
She said: “The contributions missing from my account are from when I first started teaching at 21.
“It’s very frustrating when you enter into a scheme which you trust to be efficient to then find out there are gaps.”
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “The responsibility should not be for teachers to make sure their records are correct.
“Employers should get it right first time and the government should take more action to ensure that happens.”
Sophie Bartlett, 28, a year 7 teacher in Oxfordshire, has taught for seven years.
When she checked her pension, she found four of her six eligible years had been missed out.
She said: “I’d heard through friends that I should check my teacher pension as everyone who’d spoken about it had errors in theirs.
“I didn’t think anything of it, partly because retirement is a long way off for me.
“But once I did check, I realised four years of my service was missing.
“It took months of to-and-fro-ing between the local authority, my old employer and me to get it sorted.”