Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with public sector pension scheme boards on ensuring that public sector workers who transfer to a private sector prison education provider retain access to their teachers’ pensions.

The department has been consulting on proposed changes to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) regulations in view of the recent reclassification of further education colleges as public sector by the Office for National Statistics. The extension of the Fair Deal provisions will allow those workers who are covered by the regulations to retain access to the TPS where that work is transferred to a private sector provider. That may include prison education providers. The consultation process involved discussion with the TPS Advisory Board.