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Employer responsibilities
The LGPS is a statutory pension scheme and is governed by a set of rules called the Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations. These outline your responsibilities as an LGPS employer. Your main responsibilities include the following:
- Identify which of your employees qualify for LGPS membership, enrolling them, and dealing with opt-outs
- Tell the Clwyd Pension Fund about new pensionable employees
- Tell the Clwyd Pension Fund about any material changes to pensionable employees, for example, hour changes or job changes
- Process leavers, including retirements and deaths in service
- Process ill-health cases
- Supply accurate contribution and membership information on request, including at year-end
- Collect and pay employer and employee pension contributions to the Clwyd Pension Fund
- Collect and pay Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) to the AVC provider
- Make suitable employer decisions when necessary and fulfil the employer role during the complaints process, that is: the internal dispute resolution procedure
- Prepare, publish and periodically review your Employer Discretions Policy: see below.
These responsibilities should be met within any agreed timescales, which may come from the LGPS Regulations, overriding pension law or your targets.
You may need to make pension decisions in a wide range of circumstances. Some of these decisions need an official employer policy which shows what your discretion is.
There are three basic types of employer pension decision:
- Employment grounds. For example, a member who is over age 55 but below their normal retirement age is being made redundant. So, they should receive unreduced pension benefits immediately
- Using an employer discretion. For example, whether to allow flexible retirement
- Your own judgement (even when the rules are technically clear). For example, tiered contribution rates
Please note that any decision you make could be subject to an appeal.
LGPS rules give employers some discretionary powers where you need to:
- Draft, publish and keep an up to date policy statement on the main discretions
- Make sure you are applying any other discretions correctly
- Have steps in place for when you may need to use your discretionary powers
Here is a comprehensive list of scheme employer discretions.
Employer Discretions in the LGPS
Please check this list regularly to make sure you have policies in place to cover these discretions. By law, you must put mandatory policies in place at the very least.
The LGPS Regulations 2013 require scheme employers to give their pension fund a copy of their discretions policies. Please email a copy of your policies to the Clwyd Pension Fund at pensions@flintshire.gov.uk You should also check and update your discretions policies at least every 3 years.
New scheme employers must do this within 30 days of joining the Pension Fund.