Have your say: Take part and share your views on fairness and access to the LGPS
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has opened a consultation on proposed LGPS reforms in England and Wales. These changes aim to improve both fairness in and access to the Local Government Pension Scheme.
We encourage all employers to review these consultation proposals and submit feedback. Your perspective is valuable in shaping these potential changes, particularly as the Government is seeking views on which proposals would benefit from a later implementation dates due to their complexity.
Your input truly matters.
Here are some of the key areas under consideration:
Survivor benefits: Equalising survivor benefits, removing the age 75 death grant limit, and removing cohabiting partner nomination requirements in the 2008 scheme.
Gender pensions gap: Making short authorised absences under 31 days automatically pensionable. Extending buy-back periods from 30 days to 12 months and removing the limit that provides employers must only share the cost of buying back lost pension for a maximum period of three years. Also, expanding child-related leave definitions to include all unpaid periods of additional maternity, adoption and shared parental leave.
Reporting requirements: Mandatory gender pensions gap reporting for administering authorities from the 2025 valuation and employers with more than 100 employees will be required to report gender pensions gap data.
Opt-outs: mandatory reporting of opt-out rates in annual reports, expanded data collection needed including ethnicity, religion, marital status, hours and salary etc, plus the introduction of a mandated opt-out form. Employers may be required to assist with the reporting of this information where Pension Administrators do not hold the information required.
Forfeiture reforms: Removing the employment termination requirement and three-month application limits for pension forfeiture cases.
Technical corrections: McCloud remedy fixes for pension calculations and abolishing lifetime allowance regulations while introducing new benefit limits.
Please note that these are only some of proposed LGPS reforms and some of these changes, especially those relating to the gender pensions gap will have a great impact on payroll.
Consultation closes: 7 August 2025
