Written question asked by Stephen Twigg (Labour) on Friday, 2 December 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 7 December 2011. It was answered by Nick Gibb (Conservative) on Tuesday, 13 December 2011 on behalf of the Department for Education.

Teachers: E-mail

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education how he obtained the private e-mail addresses of teachers who had not provided that information to his Department to e-mail them about changes to their pensions on 24 November 2011.

Answer: [holding answer 7 December 2011]: The e-mail addresses were obtained from the General Teaching Councils for England and Wales who shared the information under section 14 of the ““Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998””.The data was reconciled by the administrator of the Teachers' Pension Scheme against e-mail addresses already held by them, on the Department's behalf, and that database was subsequently updated.The reconciled e-mail address database was used to communicate with teachers regarding the Teachers' Pension Scheme.

Secondary information