Scheme changes April 2026

As you will have read in our previous monthly bulletins there have been some consultations regarding access and fairness in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in the last year. As a result of these consultations there are some scheme changes taking effect and we will outline these below. Please ensure your payroll providers are aware of these changes and that they have been applied from the relevant dates outlined below.

We will be sending communications regarding these changes to active members and members with benefits on hold in the coming weeks.

Unpaid authorised absence

Under the current scheme rules, for any periods of unpaid authorised absence, the member has the option of buying back the lost pension. If they elect to do so within 30 days of their return to work, the employer must contribute 2/3rds of the cost. This is called a Shared Cost Additional Pension Contribution (SCAPC)

The new rules taking effect from 1 April 2026 mean that any unpaid absence for a continuous period of less than 15 days must be treated as pensionable. Therefore, both employee and employer contributions are paid on the lost pay.

or periods of 15 days or more, members can still buy back the lost pension, but these will now be done through a Qualifying Additional Pension Arrangement (QAPA). These are treated differently to a SCAPC. The cost of buying back lost pension is based on the normal contributions the member and the employer would have paid on the lost pay. Members will now have a time limit of one year to apply for a QAPA, but they must still be an active member at the time of their application. This is an increase on the 30 day limit for a SCAPC.

These also differ in that the pension bought through a QAPA will mirror the normal pension built up. This means that the additional pension will not be reduced if the member retires on redundancy or efficiency grounds and will also count towards the calculation of survivor’s pensions.

	Shared cost APC (SCAPC)	Qualifying Additional Pension Arrangement (QAPA)
How do I know which to apply?	The period of unpaid leave started before 1 April 2026	The period of unpaid leave started after 31 March 2026
Is there a minimum number of days?	No – A shared cost APC can be bought even if the absence is for one day.	Yes – 15 days or more. Anything less than 15 days will still be pensionable.
What is the cost of buying back the lost pension?	The total cost is determined by Government Actuary Department (GAD) factors. The member pays 1/3rd and the employer pays the remaining 2/3rds.	The cost is based on normal employee and employer contributions.
Is there are time limit to apply?	Yes – within 30 days of returning to work.	Yes – within 1 year of returning to work.
Will the additional pension be reduced if the member retires on redundancy/efficiency grounds?	Yes	No
Will the added pension count towards any survivors pension?	No	Yes

 

Additional unpaid child related leave

Similarly to authorised unpaid leave, members who take additional unpaid maternity, adoption or shared parental leave have the option to buy back the lost pension for the time they were on no pay. From 1 April 2026, Assumed Pensionable Pay (APP) will apply to these types of absences where the period started after 31 March 2026. The current rules still apply to any of these absences that started before 1 April 2026. So, for these cases, you would provide no APP and the member would need to elect to buy back the lost pension through SCAPC.

Access to LGPS for elected members

Another result of the Access and Fairness consultation means that councillors and mayors will now have access to the LGPS. This will take effect from 11 May 2026, which is the first Monday following the local elections.

This means that the following will have access to the LGPS:
• all mayors and deputy mayors in England
• all elected councillors at principal authorities in England, and
• all London Assembly members.

The councillors scheme differs from the main scheme in that elected members will be required to opt in to the scheme and are not automatically enrolled. We have created an opt-in form which will soon be available on our website. Like the main scheme, elected members will also have the option of joining the 50/50 scheme. We will also be making an election form available on our website for anyone wishing to join the 50/50 scheme.

We understand that Local Government Association (LGA) are working together with Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to address any technical questions regarding these new rules. We expect they will issue a bulletin, make updates to the LGPS member website, and create a brief guide for councillors and mayors.

The regulations were laid in parliament on 25 March 2026 and can be viewed at The Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment) (Elected Member Pensions) Regulations 2026.

We are currently working with our software provider, Aquila Heywood, to establish how this will be administered. We anticipate at this stage that if you are an employer who submits a Multiple Payroll Provider (MPP) csv file, you can use your same employer code but replace the letter “A” with a letter “C” (e.g. A2345 will be C2345). For those who submit a single csv, we expect you will need to notify us of any elected members before you submit your file, and we will manually create a record for them.

Further information

We are still working to understand these new changes and update our processes so that we can administer them correctly. We will provide more information as soon as it becomes available.

We will also be running a series of short information sessions on the scheme changes over the next few weeks. We strongly recommend that you attend one of these by visiting our events page and booking onto one of the LGPS – Scheme Changes April 2026 sessions.