A member is leaving early
I have a member who is leaving
When a member leaves their employment early, it is your responsibility to provide Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) with information.
The information you need to provide will depend on whether the member has left their employment, opted out of the fund or if they have been dismissed. If the member is retiring, please visit the page A member wants to retire.
You should complete and upload a leaver notification spreadsheet, as well as notifying us of the reason for leaving on i-Connect. The spreadsheet should be uploaded each month through the Leavers page, after you have submitted your monthly i-Connect return, (unless you have no early leavers in that month). For help on completing your leavers notification spreadsheet, examples and a data dictionary are provided on the leaver specification spreadsheet.
The leaver spreadsheet can be downloaded either through the Forms page or the quick links on this page. Columns A to F are mandatory so please ensure these are all completed before uploading the spreadsheet. Column K is a ‘comments’ field that can be used to notify us of any variations in CARE pay previously provided on your monthly data submission and any other appropriate information relating to that member, for example to let us know the member is classed as a ‘casual’.
A confirmation message will appear on the screen after you have clicked the ‘submit’ button and you will receive an email notification to confirm that your leavers spreadsheet has been received.
If you are in the process of moving to i-Connect, please continue to submit your information as normal.
Members can opt out of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) at any time. If a member contacts you regarding how to opt out, you can direct them to the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) member website, where there is a section that covers how to opt out. This is where the member will find an opting out form (P4).
The member should download this form, complete it and then forward it to you. On receipt of the completed form, you will need to stop pension deductions for that member from the next available pay date, (or the date that the member has specified on the form), and notify us.
You must not provide the P4 form directly to your members.
Notifying us a member has opted out
When a member has opted out of the Scheme (but is still in active employment) you will need to let us know on your i-Connect submission. If they have more than three months membership you will also need to include them on your leavers spreadsheet.
To complete the leaver spreadsheet you will need the following information:
- the member’s basic details
- the date the member opted out of the Scheme
- final salary pay details including the best of the last three years and Regulation 10 pay where applicable.
What happens to member benefits?
What happens will depend on how long the member was in the Scheme:
Over two years’ service – If the member has more than two years’ service, benefits are calculated and put on hold. We will write to them to tell them.
Between three months and two years’ service – If the member has more than three months’ service but less than two years, then they may be entitled to a refund from us, providing they meet other qualifying criteria.
Less than three months service – If the member has opted out of the Scheme and their service is less than three months, then you will need to issue a payroll refund.
When a member has opted out within three months of joining, you need to process a payroll refund.
The member will have completed an opting out form (P4) which should help you to identify if they are eligible for a payroll refund.
If the member has opted out before you have told us that they have joined, please use your next i-Connect submission to tell us they have joined and opted out/left.
If you have already told us that the member has joined, please use your next i-Connect submission to tell us that the member has opted out.
If the member has previous benefits
The member should let you know if they have built up Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) benefits elsewhere. They need to let you know while they are still contributing into the Scheme if they want to keep their new membership separate from any benefits they have on hold. This is because since 1 April 2014 membership will have usually been combined automatically.
If the combined membership is less than two years, they will normally be eligible for a refund of the total contributions paid. The member would have to stay in the Scheme for more than three months to do this, and would not receive a payroll refund. Under this circumstance, you would need to include them on the leaver spreadsheet.
We recognise that aggregation can be complicated. Please contact the Leaving Contributors team or Contributing Members team with any questions.
When a member has left their employment with less than two years’ service, you will need to let us know on your next i-Connect submission and include them on the leaver spreadsheet.
To complete the leaver spreadsheet you will need various pieces of information. These include:
- member’s basic details
- date of leaving
- final salary pay details including the best of the last three years and Regulation 10 pay where applicable.
When a member leaves your employment with more than two years’ service, you will need to let us know on your next i-Connect submission and include them on the leaver spreadsheet.
To complete the leaver spreadsheet you will need the following details:
- member’s basic details
- date of leaving
- final salary pay details – including the best of the last three years and Regulation 10 pay where applicable.
You may be able to recover money from a member’s benefits when they have profited through the proceeds of crime.
If a member leaves their Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) employment as a result of a criminal, negligent or fraudulent act you have the discretion to direct that all or part of the member’s LGPS pension rights should be forfeited. The forfeited amount can be paid over to you as the former employer, or to specified dependant(s) of the member.
What you need to do to recover your monetary loss
Read through the LGPS forfeiture regulations and consider your employer discretions to decide whether you want to try to recover your monetary loss, and under which regulation.
There are strict time limits if you wish to apply under regulation 91.
Please complete the Recovery of monetary loss from members who have profited through proceeds of crime form (P48f) and return it to us.
If you have a case where a member left under earlier regulations (pre 2014) please contact our Compliance team.
What happens once the P48f has been received
All forms will be checked to ensure they have been completed properly.
If you are not recovering monetary loss under Regulation 93, we will examine your case and contact you.
If you are recovering monetary loss under Regulation 93, we will ask our actuary to carry out a monetary loss recovery calculation. The cost of this valuation is between £1,000 – £1,500 plus VAT.
Once we have received the actuary’s calculation, we will ask you to contact the member in writing to tell them that you are going to make a monetary loss recovery from pension benefits. We will provide you with the actuary’s calculation certificate and we have prepared a Open Document in Word for you to use if you wish.
In the letter, you must include a statement showing the amount recovered, how it has been calculated and the effect on the member’s benefits. You must give the member at least three months’ notice of the amount to be recovered.
We recommend that you get proof of delivery for any letters you send to members concerning the recovery of benefits. You should also send a copy of the letter to our Compliance team.
If the member confirms they are happy with the recovery, or three months have passed without a response and you have proof the letter was delivered, then please notify GMPF that you are ready to proceed.
We will ask you to invoice us for the agreed amount and we will provide more details about this at the time. We will pay any invoices via BACS payment.
Once payment has been made, the member’s benefits will be adjusted and our Accountancy team will invoice you for any actuarial calculations done as part of the process.
If you need any assistance at any stage of the process, please contact our Compliance team.