enhancement termination benefits and replace them with debits for the cash paid to the pension fund and pensioners and any such amounts payable but unpaid at the year-end.

POST-EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

Employees of the council may be members of three separate pension schemes:

  • The Teachers' Pension Scheme administered by Capita Teachers' Pensions on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE).
  • NHS Pension Scheme administered by NHS Pensions.
  • The Local Government Pensions Scheme administered by Ealing Council.

These schemes provide defined benefits to members (retirement lump sums and pensions), earned whilst employees worked for the council.

However, the arrangements for the teachers' and NHS scheme mean that liabilities for these benefits cannot ordinarily be identified specifically to the council. The scheme is therefore accounted for as if it was a defined contribution scheme and no liability for future payments of benefits is recognised in the Balance Sheet. The Children and Schools' line in the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement is charged with the employer's contributions payable to Teachers' Pensions in the year. The Adults & Public Health line incurs the NHS Pension employer costs.

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT PENSION SCHEME

The Local Government Scheme is accounted for as a defined benefits scheme:

  • The liabilities of the Ealing Council pension fund attributable to the council are included in the Balance Sheet on an actuarial basis using the projected unit method – i.e. an assessment of the future payments that will be made in relation to retirement benefits earned to date by employees, based on assumptions about mortality rates, employee turnover rates, etc., and projected earnings for current employees.
  • Liabilities are discounted to their value at current prices, using a discount rate based on the indicative rate of return on high quality corporate bonds.
  • The assets of Ealing Council pension fund attributable to the council are included in the Balance Sheet at their fair value:
  • quoted securities – current bid price.
  • unquoted securities – professional estimate.
  • unitised securities – current bid price.
  • property - market value.

The change in the net pension liability is analysed into the following components:

  • Service cost comprising:
  • Current service cost – the increase in liabilities as a result of years of service earned this year – allocated in the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement to the services for which the employees worked.
  • Past service cost – the increase in liabilities arising from current year decisions whose effect relates to years of service earned in earlier years