The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is a statutory pension scheme and its rules are set out in Acts of Parliament. However, the LGPS regulations do allow employers to make certain discretionary decisions and, as a result, all employers participating in the LGPS must formulate, publish and keep under review a written statement of policy in relation to those discretions.

The LGPS regulations state that employers must provide a copy of their published policy statement to Greater Manchester Pension Fund’s (GMPF) administering authority. If you make any amendments to an existing policy, you must send a copy of the revised policy to the administering authority within a month of the changes being made. You should send your discretion policy to employersupport@gmpf.org.uk. 

When writing and reviewing your policy, you are required to consider if the exercise of your discretionary powers could lead to a serious loss of confidence in the public service. You must also consider legislation outside of the LGPS rules and make sure that your policies do not infringe anti-discrimination laws in areas of gender, race, age etc.

You cannot consider requests from members where you are required to make a discretionary decision if you do not have a policy in place.