New starters

To join the LGPS, employees need to be under age 75.

If you are a designating body (such as a town or parish council) or an admission body, your employees can only join if you nominate them. Variable and casual employees may also join the LGPS.

You must notify us of new members through your i-Connect submission.

Guidance for new starters

Once we have received notification, new members will receive a letter with information on how to register for their My Pension account. After registering, members will receive their new starter pack through My Pension which includes a copy of the new member declaration form (P2). They need to complete the form and return it to us. If they prefer, they can write to us to elect to receive a paper copy.

You need to let us know if you are treating a flexible retirement as a new employment contract or as a variation to the member’s existing employment contract. You can do this through your i-Connect submission. The payroll number must be different to the payroll number held for the role prior to flexible retirement.

If the member has expressed a wish to opt out within three months of the day their hours or grade reduced and you have received the opting out form (P4) from the member, please indicate this by either ticking the opt out box in your online i-Connect submission or completing the opt out date field of your CSV file. This can be done as part of the same submission in which you are notifying us of the new starter, or a later submission.

Where the member has chosen to take part of their benefits at flexible retirement and has expressed a wish to opt out of the Scheme, please contact us with the details before you start to complete any forms to notify us of this.

In all cases where a member does not wish to remain in the LGPS post flexible retirement and chooses to opt out, the member should complete the opting out form (P4). You can’t give the employee the form but can direct them to our members’ section of this website.

If an employee’s contract of employment is for less than three months, you should not automatically enrol them into the Scheme. They can opt to join by completing an application form which they should return to you. You can use the joining form (P3) for this purpose.

Since 1 October 2012, organisations whose admission agreement to participate in the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) is open (ie new employees are permitted to join the LGPS) should contractually enrol new eligible employees into the LGPS under the terms of their admission agreement. There is further guidance available about automatic enrolment in the LGPC Circular 262.

If your agreement is ‘open with restrictions’ you may need to check the clauses to decide if your employees should be automatically enrolled. You may need to complete the application for approval to admit a new member of an Admission Body into GMPF form (P121) before enrolling new members. If you have concerns about what is in your admission agreement regarding eligibility for membership, we recommend you seek legal advice and contact our Employer Admissions team if necessary. 

If your agreement is closed, we wouldn't expect you to admit any new members but you can contact us to discuss this.

It may be possible to amend an existing admission agreement and you should contact us to discuss this.

For queries relating to admission agreements please contact the Employer Admissions team.

Most of the auto enrolment provisions relate to duties and responsibilities placed on employers. Therefore you need to understand how you will respond to the requirements to auto enrol your eligible employees and understand the financial and administrative requirements. Employers are required to comply with the duties that were introduced in stages from 1 October 2012. Further information about this is provided below in the automatic enrolment section.

You need to notify us of all new members within two months of the employee starting work, or such shorter period as required by any auto enrolment obligations under the Pensions Act 2008 (this generally tends to be before or within six weeks of the employee’s automatic enrolment date).

If you require further information about new starters please contact the Employer Data team.

The Government introduced workplace pension reforms to encourage people into pension saving through the process of auto enrolment. This reform legislation has imposed significant duties on all employers in the UK. Since October 2012, starting with the largest employers first, certain categories of workers were automatically enrolled in a qualifying pension scheme. Workers are then able to opt out if they choose but must be re-enrolled every three years if an eligible jobholder.

The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) Regulations and the auto-enrolment rules do interact and can be hard to understand. The main thing to remember is that eligible employees under the LGPS rules should be contractually enrolled in the LGPS but with the auto-enrolment legislative requirements applying after this.

Most of the auto-enrolment provisions relate to duties and responsibilities placed on employers. It is, therefore, the responsibility of employers to ensure they have systems and processes in place to comply with the auto-enrolment requirements.

To help you to understand how you will respond to the auto-enrolment requirements, guidance is available on the Pensions Regulator (TPR) website. This includes a timeline action plan and letter templates.

The LGPS can be deemed a qualifying scheme for auto-enrolment purposes and meets the test scheme standard – as confirmed by the certificate provided by the Government Actuary’s Department. The qualifying scheme certificates, as well as guidance on how auto-enrolment interacts with the LGPS, can be found on the LGPS Regulations and Guidance website.

GMPF's Pension Scheme Registry Number – 10011751

ECON – E3900002R

SCON – S2700174W

If you have any questions relating to auto-enrolment please contact our employer helpline.