Secondary Pensions Examples

This is an optional element. Developer tools such as Visual Studio Code may use this property to fetch the JSON schema and provide auto-completion and validation.

The date and time when the data was extracted from the source system.

Indicates that this is an SPCM Message. The value is the version of the schema being used for this message.

format: email, maxLength: 254

An email address which can be used as a first point for contact regarding issues with the form or content of this message.

minLength: 1; maxLength: 100

The name of the person or organisation responsible for the content of this message.

minLength: 1; maxLength: 100

Indicates what software (and what version, if applicable) was used to generate this message.

The type of message. This must be "Revenue_EmployerReturn", indicating that this message conforms to the Employer Return message format defined by the Revenue Service.

This must be set to true if the message contains test data, otherwise it must be specified as false. This provides an additional check that the data has been sent to the correct (test or live) endpoint.

This array contains the single value "SecondaryPensions", which indicates that the purpose of this return is to bring the listed employers into compliance with Secondary Pensions requirements for the covered periods.

The purposes supported by SPCM are:

• "SecondaryPensions": To comply with Secondary Pensions requirements
• "EconomicStatistics": To comply with Economic Statistics requirements

The JSON schema also supports these purposes:

• "PensionProvider": Can be used by an employer's payroll system to provide pension contributions data to a Pension Provider which complies with this standard. Please see the separate Pension Provider examples to see how this purpose is designed to be used.
• "ETI" and "SSContributions": These are to provide for future expansion and should not be used.

This array indicates the periods covered by the report. This report does not include any data, so the array is empty.

This array lists the pension schemes which are being used to receive the pension contributions. In this case there is no data being reported, so there are no pension schemes.

An array of objects, each being the return data for a single employer. Because no employers are listed, this return does nothing.

The coverage array here indicates that the report covers the monthly payroll for 2022 Q1. The array is a list of periods, each identified by its year, frequency ("Monthly" or "Weekly"), and period (which ranges from 1-12 for months, and 1-53 for weeks).

This employers array contains one employer. It is expected that almost all returns will only contain one employer, but the format allows for multiple employers in the event that a single sender administers a group of related employers together.

SPCM validates that any supplied value for the "socialSecurityNo", "taxRef" and "name" fields match a real employer. The "name" matching uses a fuzzy algorithm to allow approximate matches. The file will be rejected if these three fields do not match the same employer.

When submitting test data, you must use an employer from the test employers list.

"id"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 200

This is an identifier for the employer which is generated by the sender. It is defined as a string, and it does not matter what identifier you use, but you should use the same Id to refer to the same employer when sending successive messages.

The employer Id can only identify an employer within the scope of an API key. This means two messages received by SPCM will only be treated as referring to the same employer if both were sent with the same API key, as well as having the same employer Id.

"name"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 160

The name of the employer.

"socialSecurityNo" and "taxRef"

Either the "socialSecurityNo" or "taxRef" field (or both) must be specified when reporting Secondary Pensions data for an employer:

"socialSecurityNo"

pattern: \d{6}

The six-digit social security number of the employer.

"taxRef"

pattern: \d[X-Y]\d{6}

The tax reference number for this employer, in the form "1X123456".

If either field is omitted, the interpretation is simply that the relevant reference number is not being supplied in this return - it does not specifically mean that the value is unknown, or that the employer does not have a reference number.

The taxRef field contains a check digit, and a return will be entirely rejected if the check digit is invalid.

"employees"

This array lists all the employees who were reportable for Secondary Pensions purposes during the period of this report.

You must include all employees who fall within the scope of Secondary Pensions and were paid in any of the covered periods in every return you send, including those who have opted out or are in full time education. By submitting a return, you are making an assertion that this is a complete list of all the employees reportable for the purpose of Secondary Pensions compliance.

In this report, there are no employees. So this is a nil return, indicating that the employer did not have any employees during January, February or March 2022 who fall within the scope of Secondary Pensions.

This return contains one employee, meaning that this was the only monthly-paid person employed by this company during 2022 Q1 who falls within the scope of Secondary Pensions.

"id"

minLength: 1, maxLength: 200

This is an identifier for the employee which is generated by the sender. It can be any string, but it should be immutable. It identifies the employee within the scope of the employer, so if you are reporting for two or more employers using the same API key, then it is acceptable to have the same Id for two different people where they are employed by different employers.

"dateOfBirth"

The employee's date of birth.

"socialSecurityNo"

pattern: [A-Z]{2}\d{6}

The employee's Guernsey social security number, which must be two upper case letters followed by six digits.

"firstName"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 50

The employee's first name. If only initials are known then provide these.

"lastName"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 50

The employee's last name.

"purposes"

In this example, this array contains the single value "SecondaryPensions", which indicates that this employee falls within the scope of Secondary Pensions reporting.

Normally, the purposes listed for a each employee will be the same as the purposes in the message header. However, there may be rare situations where certain employees are not reportable for one or more of those purposes. This array is provided so that, in such cases, you can still provide a single combined return, rather than having to split a return into a separate file for each purpose.

"fullTimeEducation"

true if the employee is in full time education for the purposes of Secondary Pensions, otherwise false

"islandOfResidence">

The island where the employee is resident when working. This can be either "Guernsey" (which includes Herm and Jethou), or "Alderney".

"secondaryPensionsOptedOutUntil"

If this employee has opted out of making minimum pension contributions, then you must provide the date of the first day after the opt-out expires - i.e. the first day the employee will start contributing (assuming they do not opt out again). For example, if an employee has opted out until the end of March 2026, and will therefore start contributing on 1 April 2026, then specify "2026-04-01". If the employee has not opted out, then specify null.

It is valid to provide a date in the past, so there is no need to switch to providing null after the opt-out expires.

"pay"

The pay array contains an object for every period covered by the return in which this employee was paid.

As in the "coverage" array, each pay object is identified by a year, frequency and period. For periods covered by the report where the employee was not paid, you can omit the pay record. This means the employee was not paid in that period. Equivalently, you can provide a pay record with zero figures.

Every period returned here must be one of those in the "coverage" array in the return header, and each period included must only appear once.

In this example, pay figures are only included for February and March (periods 2 and 3). This return is therefore saying that the employee was not paid in January, because that month was included in the coverage array, but not in this employee's pay array.

All currency amounts are in pounds sterling.

"earnings"

minimum: 0; exclusiveMaximum: 100000000

The employee's earnings as defined in the Secondary Pensions Law and regulations.

The remaining properties in the pay object relate to pension contributions, details of which are given in the next example. In this case the properties are null or zero, which means the employee was not contributing to a pension scheme during 2022 Q1.

This array contains details of the pension schemes which are referred to in this return.

"id"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 200

This is an identifier for the pension scheme which is generated by the sender. Successive returns from the same sender should always use the same Id for the same pension scheme.

"providerCountry"

The ISO 3166 two-letter code for the country in which the provider is resident. Use "GG" for Guernsey.

"countryProviderRef"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 12; nullable

The provider/scheme's registration number in its country of residence. If you have both please use the scheme registration number. In Guernsey, this is the GFSC Reference.

Specify null only if the provider does not have a registration number.

"providerName"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 160

The name of the pension provider

"name"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 160

The name of the pension scheme

"taxRef"

pattern: \dR\d{6}

The Revenue Service issued tax reference number for this pension scheme. This must be given in the exact form shown here. The letter in the second position is always an R.

"type"

The type of pension scheme, which can be "DefinedBenefit", "DefinedContribution" or "Hybrid"

In this example the employee is the same as before, but has additional pension contribution information in the pay array:

"pay"

"pensionSchemeId"

minLength: 1; maxLength: 200

The Id of the pension scheme into which the pension contributions for this employee are being paid. The "pensionSchemeId" must match the "id" of a pension scheme which appears in the "pensionSchemes" array of this return, or of a previous return for this API key.

The "pensionSchemeId" may be null only if there are no pension contributions in this pay period (i.e. all of "pensionEmployerAmount", "pensionEmployeeRegularAmount" and "pensionEmployeeAdditionalAmount" are zero).

"pensionEmployerAmount"

minimum: 0; exclusiveMaximum: 100000000

The amount contributed to the pension scheme in this pay period on the employer's own account in respect of this employee.

"pensionEmployeeRegularAmount"

minimum: 0; exclusiveMaximum: 100000000

The amount contributed to the pension scheme in this pay period which is a regular deduction from the employee's earnings.

"pensionEmployeeAdditionalAmount"

minimum: 0; exclusiveMaximum: 100000000

The amount contributed to the pension scheme in this pay period which is an additional contribution made by the employee.