Rejoining the scheme

If you rejoin the LGPS after having previously built up LGPS pension benefits, then these benefits can be combined with your new active pension account in the scheme. If you opted out of the scheme on or after 11 April 2015, you will not be permitted to join the two periods of membership together and, instead, you will have two separate sets of pension accounts in the scheme.

If you rejoin the LGPS after having previously left an LGPS employment with a deferred refund, then this deferred refund must be combined with your new active pension account in the scheme. In these circumstances, the refund would no longer be payable.

More than one employment

Where you have more than one active employment and therefore more than one pension account in the LGPS, you can elect which active account to combine your previous LGPS pension rights with.

	Upon rejoining the scheme, the Clwyd Pension Fund will ask members for information regarding any previous LGPS membership and subsequently write out to the member ......
I have a Deferred Benefit in the LGPS	... providing them with all applicable options to combine their deferred benefit with their new active pensionable position. Dependant upon when the previous deferred benefit was, will determine which options are available to the member
I have a Deferred Refund in the LGPS	... notifying them that their deferred refund has either automatically been combined with their new active pensionable position, or notify them that they must take a refund of contributions from their previous position. This will depend upon when the member contributed into the scheme in their previous position.

Final Salary Link

If the deferred benefit consists of only pre 1st April 2014 service, an election is required to either combine both pension benefits (with a final salary link) or to convert the deferred benefit into a CARE pension benefit.

A key protection surrounding the combining of pension records is the final salary link protection. This protection means the link can be retained if a member does not have a break in active public sector pensionable service of greater than 5 years, meaning that the final salary (pensionable pay) of the most recent combined position can be used to calculate all pre 31st March 2014 membership.

Example

	JOB A	JOB B
Dates	01/04/1990 - 31/03/2012	01/04/2015 - 31/03/2017
FTEPensionable Pay	£18,000	£25,000

If a member elects to combine both JOB A and JOB B, all pre 1st April 2014 service shall be calculated using the Full Time Equivalent pensionable pay at 31/03/2017, and NOT at 31/03/2012 due to this ‘final salary link’ (even though no benefits in JOB B were ever contributed to in the final salary scheme).

Losing the Final Salary Link

If the deferred benefit consists of only pre 1st April 2014 service, but a break in active public sector pensionable service of greater than 5 years has occurred prior to re-joining, the link to final salary is lost.

In these circumstances, if members wish to combine both periods of pensionable service they must convert the pre 1st April 2014 service into a CARE benefit which will stand alongside the members ongoing CARE benefits and continue to be revalued in line with inflation.

This conversion from service to CARE benefits is calculated similar to that of a transfer.