Employer membership

Apportionment of members across employers

Schemes should try to apportion scheme members between participating employers using reasonable estimates where necessary. Having correctly apportioned as many as possible without incurring disproportionate cost, they should then divide the remaining members between the participating employers, in proportion to the number of members already allocated to each participating employer.

For example, assuming a scheme has 120 members in total and only 60 of these can be correctly allocated. There are three participating employers with the following number of members:

Employer A - 10 members

Employer B - 20 members

Employer C - 30 members

The remaining 60 members should be allocated in the same proportions i.e. 10 members to Employer A, 20 members to Employer B and 30 members to Employer C giving the following totals to be entered in the relevant field on the Scheme Return:

Employer A - 20 members

Employer B - 40 members

Employer C - 60 members

Types of member

Include any members who have defined contributions with defined benefit underpin, defined benefits with defined contribution underpin, defined contributions with guaranteed minimum pension, and equivalent pension benefits. 

Include annuitants (including dependents) where the annuity has been bought in the name of the trustees. Include any dependants who are in receipt of a pension from the scheme. Where a dependents are not in receipt of a pension from the scheme they are not counted as members.  

Exclude any death benefit only members and any annuitants (dependant or member) where the annuity has been bought in the name of the individual. Specifically, only exclude dependants in receipt of annuities where they have been bought out in their name as opposed to the trustees’ name.

Statutory Employer

"Yes" should only be selected where the employer meets the statutory definition for all purposes (i.e. scheme funding, section 75 and PPF eligibility). Otherwise select "No".

Where there is no employer which meets the statutory definition for all purposes, please contact the regulator. Please see our statement on identifying your statutory employer for more information.

Generally an employer will meet the statutory definitions if it currently employs one or more active members of the scheme. The definition of an employer is set out in section 124 of the Pensions Act 1995 and section 318 of the Pensions Act 2004, as extended to former employers as extended by regulation 9 of the Occupational Pension Scheme (Employer Debt) Regulations 2005, regulation 2 and paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Occupational Pension Scheme (Scheme Funding) Regulations 2005, and regulation 1 of the Pension Protection Fund (Entry Rules) Regulations 2005 (as amended, or under previous legislation applicable at the relevant time). There may be other circumstances in which an employer will fall within any of the statutory definitions; this will depend on the particular circumstances of the employer and the scheme. If there are any other entities which fit the statutory definitions of employer, please ensure you list these as participating employers.