PCSE Online – How to Fix Common Issues

As we are all getting used to using PCSE Online, there are a couple of areas where we are seeing issues for practices. Therefore, in this article, my hope is that I can try to highlight them and give some guidance as to what the solutions could be.

Superannuation

Superannuation would seem to be a good place to start as we are still trying to work through the issues we found when submitting the type 1 pension certificates using PCSE Online for the first time, earlier this year. I believe we were quite possibly the biggest contributor of certificates uploaded directly to PCSE Online (rather than via their old portal) as from figures shared by PCSE, ours were probably 20-25% of the total submitted this way.

There are two areas I want to cover here: -

Employee Contribution Statement

This can be accessed by each person with a PCSE Online login. You just need to go to the Pensions section and select ‘Employee Contribution Statement’. There are four drop-down boxes in the search section which have filters, financial year, income type, select practice and pension scheme type. In most cases, the only one you need to choose is the financial year, which would be 2021/22 for the year we preparing tax returns for now (and pension certificates in the early part of next year). This should then give you the details of all superannuation deductions that PCSE hold for you in relation to 2021/22, which should be broken down by month.

This is the statement that we will need to compare to the information that we hold and also ensure PCSE have the same details. It should also help to highlight any adjustments they have made after 31^st March 2022. It would be helpful if you could send this to us, as we cannot access your personal contribution statements. This will enable us to check it against what we think the deductions should be. The only problem we foresee regarding this is if they subsequently update your record after you send it to us, as the information will not be up to date. Therefore, we are trying to get live access to this information for GP’s we act for – although it will take time to convince PCSE this is the best way of dealing with it.

Performers List

It is still a big issue with getting PCSE records updated to reflect joiners and leavers to your practice. For pension purposes this affects all GP’s (Partners and Salaried GP’s) as well as non-GP Partners (Nurses and PM’s). The problem is that until the performers list is updated and everything is signed off, then it is virtually impossible to get pension deductions started or stopped for these GPs. The stopping is easier as you can put nil on an estimate against their name, but we are still finding that some practices have not done this which means deductions continue to be taken for a GP who left the practice over a year ago – which does not help cashflow!

The joiner’s issue (or change of status from Salaried GP to Partner) is more difficult as if the GP is not on your practice estimate then no superannuation can be deducted. This is better for practice cash flow – but the deductions will be taken in a one-off lump sum later. However, from a tax point of view, it is not good news for the GP partner who has no deductions, as you can only claim tax relief on deductions physically paid in a tax year, so with no deductions, there is no claim. For a GP with £100k pensionable earnings there is £27,880 superannuation not being claimed for tax, which can have a knock-on effect to not only higher tax, but potential issues with loss of the personal allowance and causing the GP to fall into higher tax bands. It is really important to get this sorted before the end of the tax year after a GP partner starts.

Your practice manager (or whoever your “Super-user” is) can review the practice estimate to ensure that everyone who should be listed is showing by going into pensions on PCSE Online and selecting “Estimate”. This will then list all GP’s etc. who have their deductions taken from the monthly statement. If someone is missing you need to go through the joiner process. If a GP Partner is in the salaried section, then they will need to update their role, which effectively means going through the same process as a joiner.

There is a flowchart from PCSE that explains who needs to do what. The link to it is shown below:

https://pcse.england.nhs.uk/media/3018/pcse-performers-list-factsheet-v11-january-2022.pdf

The main thing to note is that everything has to start from the GP’s login – the practice manager cannot initiate a new role or change of role.

Payments

I think the statements are slowly getting more user-friendly, but there are still a few issues with them: -

1. Added Years – this is shown within the employees’ section for superannuation deductions, but there shouldn’t be a percentage next to it. I think there have been multiple issues (missing completely or duplicated spring to mind) but they seem to have settled down and be shown correctly from the practice statements I have viewed.
2. Payments – the statements show a split at the top between CCG and NHS England, but it shows debits and credits separately – the net of these two for each should match a receipt at the bank, BUT –
3. Remittance Advices with additional information on do make the payments difficult to match – there should be a remittance on the payment date and the credit/debit amounts should be detailed separately on the statement for you – anything else (that doesn’t say GPP payment) is an additional receipt and will not have a corresponding statement on PCSE online.
4. Statements that have a net debit balance are a bit misleading as that would mean that you should pay the CCG that amount. What I have found is that those debit amounts (usually backdated superannuation) are adjusted on the next monthly statement – so the debit balance is really a duplication.
5. Large adjustments for superannuation – the new system doesn’t allow for common sense, but it does seem to leave open potential issues with large sums being deducted/refunded in error – these vary from a couple of £1,000 to adjustments at one practice of over £50,000. What we have tended to see frequently is that superannuation deductions are refunded for a period and then new deductions taken for that same period – normally this is due to a GP being incorrectly categorised as a salaried GP rather than a partner (or vice-versa). If this happens in the same month it is not a massive issue as long as the practice is aware of any difference between what should be and what was deducted – but in some instances the two halves of the adjustment are carried out in different months. So, this could impact cashflow if the amounts are substantial – It may be £25k refunded in one month and then deducted the following month. However, if this was the other way round then the practice would have £25k less until the refund comes in – a potential headache if it is a tax payment month where partners are looking to draw balances to pay their own tax.

With payments, the key is to review the statements monthly and address any large amounts that don’t make sense immediately – PCSE may not find these problems and if you are waiting until we prepare the accounts that may mean your cashflow problem becomes unmanageable.

We are hopeful that, over time, these issues will reduce but even if they do, it is very important to monitor the situation at your practice to minimise disruption to cash flow.