Teachers' pension scheme employer contribution grant: further education providers academic year 2024 to 2025
Updated 5 March 2025
Applies to England
漏 Crown copyright 2025
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The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) closed on 31 March 2025. All activity has moved to the Department for Education (DfE). You should continue to follow this guidance.
Introduction
This grant provides funding to further education (FE) providers to cover increased employer contributions to the teachers鈥� pension scheme (TPS). It聽covers the rate change from 16.4% to 23.6% in September 2019 and the increase to 28.6% in April 2024. The funding for this started in the 2019 to 2020 academic year. This guidance confirms the arrangements for the 2024 to 2025 academic year.
贰濒颈驳颈产颈濒颈迟测听
The following types of FE providers participate in the鈥疶PS:聽
- general 鈥疐E鈥痗olleges聽
- sixth-form colleges聽
- designated institutions (including the new designated institutions that form part of higher education (HE) provider group structures)聽
- special post-16 institutions
These providers will receive extra funding for increased employer contributions in each academic year covered by this grant if they receive Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funding for the same period and data from the relevant financial year shows they paid into the teachers鈥� pension scheme.聽
We will treat colleges converting to academies before the start of the payment period as an academy, and they should refer to the鈥�guidance for schools. We will treat those converting during a payment period as an academy from the next appropriate payment point.
Calculating and making payments
2024 to鈥�2025 academic year聽
We聽 will use the 2022 to 2023 financial year audited payments made by providers to Capita for鈥疶PS鈥痶o calculate funding.聽
We will use聽 the employer pension contributions made at a rate of 23.6% to calculate:聽
- an adjusted annual total that would be the equivalent amount if the 16.4% rate had still applied, we will do this by dividing the total payments made by 23.6 and multiplying by 16.4聽
- an adjusted annual total that would be the equivalent amount if the 28.6% rate had already applied, we will do this by dividing the total payments made by 23.6 and multiplying by 28.6聽
Based on these revised annual figures, we will fund the difference between the鈥痗alculated TPS鈥痯ayments at the old rate (16.4%) and new rate (28.6%) uplifted by 6.8% and 3.7% to reflect estimated average increases in earnings in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
The estimated average increases in earnings are taken from the 鈥痯ublished by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
We will pay the funding in 2 separate payments:聽
-
September 2024 for the 8-month period from August 2024 to March 2025 - the amount will be 66.67% of the full-year figure聽
-
April 2025 for the 4-month period from April to July 2025 - the amount will be 33.33% of the full-year figure
Where providers have merged, we combine the payments made and associate them with the new institution.聽
Providers that receive 16 to 19鈥疎SFA鈥痜unding will receive confirmation of the payment amounts alongside their 16 to聽 19 funding allocation for academic year 2024 to 2025. We communicate funding amounts for all other providers by email.