Employer bulletin October 2025

On 13 October, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government launched a consultation covering four proposals related to pension benefits and access to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). The proposals focus on:

• Normal Minimum Pension Age

• Pension access for mayors and councillors

• Academies in the LGPS

• The new Fair Deal

The consultation is open until 22 December. You can access it by visiting: Local Government Pension Scheme in England and Wales: Scheme improvements (access and protections) - GOV.UK

We have now sent Pension Savings Statements to all members affected by pension tax limits. As in previous years we will be offering support to these members through online webinars.

Affected members can book these by visiting our events page.

When completing the online P71 form, please use the optional comments box to explain any differences between the pay figures you enter and those submitted in your monthly data collections. Providing this clarification will help us avoid raising a query and enable us to send retirement information to the member more promptly.

Reminder: The deadline to submit comments on the draft Funding Strategy Statement is 7 November.

You can view the draft by visiting the Funding Strategy Statement Consultation.

Please send any feedback to employersupport@gmpf.org.uk before the deadline.

We still have some spaces available on the ‘Prudential – A guide to administering AVC Contributions Session’ session that we advertised in last month’s bulletin.

This session is for all Payroll Teams who currently send LGPS AVC Contributions to Prudential.

Prudential will be delivering some important messages regarding your monthly submissions, so please attend this session if you submit AVCs or invite a colleague to attend on your behalf.

To register for this online event please use this link: Events - GMPF

We will be discussing the following subjects:

• Payroll Submission Rules

• Creating and formatting a file

• Next Steps to Straight Through Processing

As always, there will be time set aside for discussion and a question-and-answer session.

We continue to run employer training workshops on several topics. 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 267, which contains several LGPS updates.

 You can access Bulletin 268 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.