I’m going on parental leave
If you go on parental leave, your regular contributions and employer subsidy stop. However, you can choose to make voluntary contributions for that time.
If, within 7 months of returning to work, you make up some or all of the regular employee contributions you have missed, your employer will match those contributions, up to a maximum of 3% of your salary for the relevant parental leave period. You do not have to make up all the regular contributions you missed if you do not want to.
The minimum amount you must contribute to take advantage of this facility is 1.5% of the salary you would have received for pay periods during the period of leave, or for such one or more of those pay periods as you choose. It is the higher of your salary just before you left, and the salary you restart on, that is relevant for this purpose.
If you are made redundant during or on return from a period of parental leave, you can still make up the employee contributions for some or all of the time you were on parental leave and receive the matching employer subsidy contributions, as long as payment is made before the effective date of the redundancy.
• When you go on parental leave you need to notify payroll or your school administrator to stop deductions
• If you want to continue making voluntary contributions while you’re on parental leave you need to contact your SSRSS scheme provider to set up an automatic payment or direct debit from your bank account
• If you want to make up some or all of your missing contributions on return to work, you can either make increased regular contributions or make a lump sum deposit. If you make up the missing contributions within 7 months of returning to work they will be matched by your employer
• If you have made voluntary contributions while on parental leave you can ask for these to be reclassified as regular contributions, which your employer will then match
• You need to tell your scheme provider to convert these catch-up payments to ‘employee contributions’.