Employer bulletin August 2025

It is your responsibility to provide details of any breaks in service on your monthly data return. This applies for instances such as strikes, authorised and/or unauthorised unpaid leave, and unpaid additional maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.

Please ensure you have provided a break in service start and end date, as well as the reason for the break in service, in the appropriate column.

If you require further guidance on this, please contact us at iconnect@gmpf.org.uk.

On 18 August, we sent an email alert to iConnect users on how to correctly provide pensionable pay for term time only members. Please ensure you follow these instructions when calculating pay for members who work during term time only.

If you did not receive this alert, it is available at Emails and bulletins - GMPF.

As you may be aware, the 2025 Actuarial valuation commenced on 1 April 2025. The Valuation is a project undertaken by GMPF and our actuary, Hymans Robertson to assess the value of GMPF’s assets and liabilities at 31 March 2025 and to set appropriate contribution rates for all GMPF employers for the three year period from 1 April 2026.

We have been working closely with the actuary over the last few months, providing member and employer data to enable to actuary to begin their calculations. We have also been reviewing and updating the Funding Strategy Statement. The proposed Funding Strategy Statement will be circulated to all employers during September for consultation along with key information about the project and more detail about progress made to date.

Thank you for responding to our data queries regarding the McCloud judgement. This has been a significant project for GMPF to administer, and the work undertaken by employers has been vital in helping us to deliver this successfully.

The majority of the rectification work has now been completed. We have some queries that we need to resolve before this project reaches its conclusion. We will contact you on an individual basis if we need any further information.

The week commencing 15 September marks the annual pension awareness week. Pension Awareness are running a series of free and impartial information sessions throughout the week which will be useful for both members and employers.

Find out more about these sessions by visiting the pension awareness website.

GMPF will also be hosting some online presentations for members during that week. These can be booked by visiting the Member events page on our website.

We have changed the way we schedule our employer training sessions based on your feedback. We have now scheduled and published all our events for the rest of the 2025 calendar year. This will allow you to view and book alternative dates if the next one is not suitable for you. These sessions may be helpful if you are new or want to refresh your knowledge on subjects such as ill health, pensionable pay, retirements, leavers, topping up benefits, and employer discretions.

You can book by visiting the events section of the employer website. Spaces are limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

You can also access recordings of all these sessions on our website. You can do this any time and will find them under training webinars on the technical and training guides page of our employer website.  

The Local Government Association (LGA) has published Bulletin 266, which contains several LGPS updates.

 You can access Bulletin 266 and all previous LGPC bulletins by clicking here. 

The latest publications from our Actuary, Hymans Robertson, are available. The webpage allows you to filter subjects and audience types easily so you can read the publications that are of interest to you.