What do I do if Teachers' Pensions do not have a record of your service more than six months after the end of the financial year in question?

1 Check your payslips or any other records to see whether deductions have been made from your salary.

2 If contributions have not been deducted and you are full-time and have not opted out, your employer is generally at fault and will need to make retrospective contributions. You will also be required to pay your retrospective contributions but you should try to negotiate (with the help of your branch) that you will not pay more than 15% of your income in any financial year. This 15% is made up of 6% regular payments on current income and 9% towards arrears. If you obtain `time to pay' from Teachers' Pensions you will be required to pay interest. Your employer may agree to pay the arrears and to recoup the money by deduction from future salary.

3 If contributions have not been deducted and you are part-time and have not opted into the scheme, you are in a weaker position than a full-time teacher as you should have opted in. However, if you were not invited to join the scheme you can still try to negotiate retrospective payments on the grounds that the employer could have told you that you were entitled to join the scheme.

4 If contributions have been deducted, check with your employer that they have been properly recorded.

5 Check that your employer and Teachers' Pensions are using the same name, teachers' reference number, National Insurance number and date of birth for you.

6 Check that your employer has not mistakenly paid your contributions to the local government scheme. The employer should be able to give you the address of the local government scheme relevant to non-teaching staff in your institution.

7 Remind your employer that they must solve the problem with Teachers' Pensions.

8 Complain to the Standards and Information Group at Teachers' Pensions. Clearly head your letter `First Stage Internal Disputes Procedure'. Allow a month for a reply. If this is not successful, be prepared to make a second stage complaint to the Pensions Policy and Contract Team, DfEE (same address as Teachers' Pensions). State on your letter that you are authorising NATFHE to receive information on your behalf and copy it to your NATFHE regional office.

9 Continue to remind and question your employer in case they have not supplied the correct information to TP.

10 Alert your branch rep. so that you can receive support and your colleagues can also request benefit statements in case there is a general problem with your employer.

Address and phone number for Teachers' Pensions: Mowden Hall, Staindrop Road, Darlington DL3 9EE (telephone 0845 6066166)