Important Updates To The Lgps
What are the LGPS Regulations?
The Government is planning changes to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) Regulations, and we want to keep you informed about what this means for you.
These regulations set the rules for how your pension is managed. They cover things like who can join the scheme, how contributions work, and how your pension benefits are calculated.
What is happening?
The Government has recently carried out two reviews - the ‘Access and Fairness’ consultation and the ‘Access and Protections’ consultation. These reviews looked at ways to improve the LGPS and invited people to share their views before any decisions are made.
The proposed updates aim to make the scheme fairer, clearer, and more consistent for all members. They focus on improving access to benefits and enhancing the overall member experience.
The LGPS ‘Access and Fairness’ consultation looked at improving outcomes for members and their dependants. They cover:
- making survivor pensions and death grants fairer
- reducing the gender pensions gap in the LGPS
- updating the rules around taking pensions away (forfeiture)
- tidying up how the McCloud remedy is applied
- other improvements, including updates to five-year refunds, older (pre 2014) additional voluntary contribution arrangements and how very small pensions are paid.
The LGPS ‘Access and Protections’ consultation looked at improving access to the LGPS. They cover:
- the minimum age you can normally take your pension is going up from 55 to 57, although some people will still be able to take it earlier if they have a protected pension age
- councillors and mayors will now be able to join the pension scheme, bringing England in line with the rest of the UK
- the New Fair Deal which explains what happens to staff pensions when employees are moved to a new employer.
Will I be affected?
At this stage, we expect that most members will see little or no impact. If any of the confirmed changes do affect you personally, we’ll be in touch with clear information about what it means for your pension.
For those members who are affected, the changes will be minimal, and there will be no decreases to any benefits.
- New amendments will ensure all survivor benefits under earlier regulations are equal, removing any gender-based differences.
- The age limit of 75 to qualify for a death grant payment will be removed.
- Death grants will no longer have to be paid to personal representatives if they remain unpaid after two years.
- The requirement to have nominated a cohabiting partner (for deaths between 1 April 2008 and 31 March 2014) will be removed.
- Minor updates have also been made to the rules for short term children’s pensions.
Several amendments have been introduced to help remove the gender pensions gap, including:
- revising the cost of buying back pension ‘lost’ during absences of more than 14 days
- extending the election period from 30 days to 1 year
- allowing employers to contribute to the costs
- ensuring purchased pension aligns with the normal pension built up.
Additional amendments include:
- making pension contributions compulsory for authorised unpaid absences of 14 days or less
- applying assumed pensionable pay to unpaid additional adoption leave, unpaid additional maternity leave, and unpaid shared parental leave.
Gender pensions gap reporting will be a compulsory part of actuarial valuations, with the simple requirement from 2025 moving to more detailed reporting from 2028.
- The regulations have been updated to reflect the abolition of lifetime allowance.
- Further minor amendments ensure the McCloud Remedy protections are correctly incorporated within the calculations.
- Additional small wording, definition, and clarification updates have been made.