On Thursday 14 November, we held our 2024 Employers Meeting. This year’s meeting was presented by representatives from our actuary, Mercer, who provided information to employers on important topics…

The next employers’ meeting will be held on 14 November 2024. The final agenda has still to be confirmed but will focus on the next fund's next triennial valuation due in 2025. We recommend that rele…

On 20 May 2024, The Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) issued a short survey to local government employers regarding opting out of the LGPS. The SAB would like to thank all employers who took the time to re…

As the pensions industry prepares for connection to the pensions dashboards ecosystem, the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) has published an updated version of data standards. The Money and Pensio…

The Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) have published an informer document to explain the timeline and information flow for the trienni…

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is the ultimate guarantor of academy schools. In the light of this, The Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) has been asked to confirm its view that the ESFA is…

Do any of your employees pay Additional Voluntary Contributions? If so then it’s important for payments and payroll files to be sent to Prudential correctly, as it could mean: Prudential won’t inve…

The Pensions Dashboard project had a reset last year and a new connection deadline for all pension schemes of 31st October 2026 has been announced.  Pension Schemes will have to join in phases and th…

The next employers’ meeting will be held on 14 November 2024  The agenda is still to be confirmed but, we recommend that relevant staff (those responsible for LGPS issues or working in finance) fro…

From the age of 55, a member may be able to flexibly retire with your agreement. It is important to make sure that you contact us when a member decides to take flexible retirement.  Employers must re…

Most people will change jobs several times during their working life, meaning that they may have more than one pension pot. Pensions Dashboards is a government initiative which will enable all people…

Pensions dashboards are being created so that savers will be able to see their pension information in one place. A saver will use dashboards to search the records of all pension schemes to confirm wh…

The LGA will be delivering their own employer role training courses throughout the year, providing you with up-to-date knowledge regarding scheme rules within the LGPS.  There are various opportuniti…

As part of the ongoing work that the Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) is doing on the gender pensions gap in the LGPS, the Scheme Advisory Board are looking for employers interested in taking part in furth…

Membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is automatic in many cases, but a member may choose to cancel their membership if they do not wish to be in the scheme. This is called opting o…

A vacancy has arisen on the Pension Board for a new employer representative. The fund is currently seeking nominations from our employers to fill this role. What is the Pensions Board?   The role of…

There are many types of member absences that you'll be faced with as an employer. It's important you know how to deal with these situations if they arise. Some examples include: Unpaid leave of a…

The LGPS have released the 2024/2025 employee contribution bands for England and Wales, which will be effective from 1st April 2024. The new bands have been calculated by increasing the 2023/24 contr…

An ill-health retirement allows a member to retire before their normal pension age due to ill health. You as the employer must firstly decide whether the member meets the rules for an ill-health pensi…

As a result of its recent industry consultation, the Government has confirmed that the 1 October 2023 deadline for the McCloud remedy is expected to be met, with the new scheme remediable service regu…

Following the actuarial valuation in 2022, our actuary Mercers have undertaken a review of early retirement strain cost factors. These have now been confirmed. The new factors can now be seen on th…

Changes to pensions tax limits were announced in the Chancellor’s Spring budget on 15 March 2023. They affect the two main allowances for pension savings – a lifetime allowance and an annual allowanc…

Below are the employee contribution bands effective from 1 April 2023. These are calculated by increasing the 2022/23 employee contribution bands by the September 2022 CPI figure of 10.1 per cent and…

Statistics for the Local Government Pension Scheme nationally were published on 26 October 2022 by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Highlights include: • total expenditure of…

The fund is required by the Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations to prepare and publish a funding strategy statement (FSS). This document sets the fund’s strategy on how each fund employer’s pe…

Thank you to those who attended the fund’s 2022 employers meeting.  Your feedback is very important to us so we invite you to complete our Employers Meeting 2022 Feedback Form, which will only take 5…

Registration is now open for our 2022 Employers Meeting. Book your place today! Date: Wednesday 23rd November Time: 10am to 12pm Where: Webinar via MS Teams The employers meeting is your opportuni…

The fund has been made aware of a national issue involving a council job advert offering an additional cash allowance if staff opt out of the LGPS. The fund is not aware of any employers in the Shrop…

We’ve recently published our updated Brief Scheme Guide in line with changes from the LGA. You can find the latest version of the Brief Scheme guide on our forms and guides page. The most significant…

On 12 May 2022, DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) published statutory guidance on special severance payments, which are additional payments, over and above statutory and con…

The HR and Payroll guides produced by the Local Government Association (LGA) covering HR and payroll issues for LGPS members have been updated. The updates are available on the LGPS regulation website…

The LGPS regulations require scheme employers to inform the fund of any first instance decisions made under regulation 72 of the LGPS Regulations 2013, concerning the ‘rights or liabilities’ of scheme…

We've recently updated our list of approved Independent Registered Medical Practitioners (IRMPs), who assist with ill-health retirements. You’ll notice that Dr Boag is no longer on the list due to ret…

There are still places available on the following employer role training course run by the Local Government Association (LGA). The course is based on the scheme rules for the Local Government Pension…

What is the McCloud case? The case concerns the transitional protections given to scheme members, who in 2012 were within 10 years of their normal retirement age, in the judges and firefighters schem…

We have seen several delays in such outsourcings, where the admission agreement has not been put in place for the contract start date. We would like to take this opportunity to remind those of you who…

New versions of the full privacy notice and summary privacy notice have been uploaded to the Shropshire County Pension Fund website. These notices have been further updated since the last news update…

In our last news update we told you that three new independent registered medical practitioners (IRPMs) were added to our approved list. Dr Naeem and Dr Bland have still been added but Dr Rosalind Poo…

There are many types of member absences that you'll be faced with as an employer. It's important that you know how to deal with these situations if they arise. Whatever the absence, don't forget that…

New versions of the following General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) documents have been uploaded to the Shropshire County Pension Fund website.The updated documents are:• Template data retention…

You must make sure that all your new starters are given a new member form. You should give this to your new employees when you are telling them about their pension options upon appointment.We have not…

At the 17 January 2022 Pensions Committee, three new independent registered medical practitioners (IRMPs) were added and one IRMP was removed from our approved list. Such requests must be approved by…

On the advice of our actuary, we have reviewed the factors currently used in the calculation of early retirement strain costs. The factors were last updated as part of the introduction of the £95k Exi…

The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is one of the largest defined benefit (DB) schemes in the world and is the largest DB scheme in England and Wales, with 15,700 employers, 5.9m members and as…

HM Treasury has published consultations on the cost control mechanism and the discount rate methodology with a written ministerial statement. Both consultations are available to view on the non-schem…

The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has published a consultation on New best Value statutory guidance covering special severance payments for local authorities in England.…

The Local Government Authority (LGA) has recently published the 2021 versions of the HR and Payroll guides. These guides are there help you with the day to day running of your HR and payroll departme…

Two new Independent Registered Medical Practitioners (IRMPs) were approved by the Pensions Committee on June 25th.   IRMPs are medical professionals, specialising in occupational health, who give fo…

When you agree to a flexible retirement it's important that you do not automatically take the member out of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). Instead, you should continue to take the members…

What is the McCloud case? The case concerns the transitional protections given to scheme members, who in 2012 were within 10 years of their normal retirement age, in the judges and firefighters schem…

We recently sent you an email to let you know that we were updating our funding strategy statement and employer events policy. This email included both policies and the planned updates for you to rev…

Please note, the below caveat will be included on all strain cost requests received by Shropshire County Pension Fund.  'On 12 February 2021, HM Treasury [HMT] published the Exit Payment Cap Directio…

In a surprising development on Friday 12th February 2021 , the government issued the Exit Payment Cap Directions 2021 which disapply parts of the Restriction of Public Sector Exit Payments Regulations…

On 10 April 2019, HM Treasury (HMT) opened a consultation on draft regulations, directions and guidance to bring in a £95k exit payment cap on public sector exit payments. ‘The Restriction of Public S…

Shropshire County Pension Fund has become one of the first in the country to report on the carbon footprint of its £2 billion investment portfolio. Shropshire County Pension Fund has published its Cli…

The fund's Annual Report & Accounts 2019/20 highlights the important issues affecting the fund over the previous financial year, together with full details about our administration performance. Th…

To make sure the fund is recording all appeals logged under the formal internal dispute resolution procedure (IDRP), we ask that our employers tell us about any IDRP stage 1 appeals. An appeal can be…

The Local Government Association (LGA) held an informative webinar for scheme employers on 6 November which was recorded and can be viewed on the LGA website. The slides can also be found on this page…

We recently told you that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) published a consultation on restricting exit payments in local government in England and Wales. This closed…

The fund will soon be looking for a new scheme member and employer representatives to sit on the Pensions Board and also increasing how often meetings take place. The role of the Pension Board is to h…

To help explain how the reforms above could affect members, we’ve made some frequently asked questions (FAQs) which can be found on our members news page. Please feel free to share this page with your…

Background  On 10 April 2019, HM Treasury (HMT) opened a consultation on draft regulations, directions and guidance to bring in a £95k exit payment cap on public sector exit payments. This included p…

You can now take a look at this year's employer meeting slides. The meeting was held virtually on 21 October 2020 using Microsoft Teams.  A recording of the meeting is also available to watch now.  …

The £95k cap legislation has gone through the House of Commons meaning this legislation will become law on 4 November 2020, before the LGPS regulations are changed. The exit cap legislation is called…

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) consultation on reform of exit payments in local government: Don’t forget, the consultation on the reform of exit payments in local gover…

Proposed changes to the LGPS regulations have been announced. These changes affect the automatic entitlement to unreduced pension benefits for members over age 55 who leave the scheme because of redun…

We've recently invited scheme members to a pensions tax webinar on the 9th October 2020 from 10am to 12pm which we're running with our Actuary, Mercer. We've only invited scheme members who we think m…

Our annual employers meeting is being held on 21 October 2020 from 10am to 11.30am. We’re pleased to be able to keep you up to date on the latest news affecting the Local Government Pension Scheme. L…

We've recently made some minor changes to our discretions policy template, after the introduction of amendment regulations in 2018 and 2019. This template can be shared with employers. We'd like to re…

Last month we let you know that HM Treasury had published the long awaited Government response to the consultation on restricting exit payments in the public sector to £95,000. This was followed by th…

Annual benefit statements 2020 are now available online - make sure you tell your employees!As part of our requirements under the LGPS regulations, we release benefit statements to our members by 31st…

The Local Government Association (LGA) have created a new area of the LGPS website where scheme employers can find dedicated resources and guides about the employer role. The Employer Resources sectio…

Consultation on amendments to the statutory underpin and data collection exercise to start On 16 July 2020, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) released a consultation o…

On 21 July 2020, HM Treasury published the long awaited Government response to the consultation on restricting exit payments in the public sector to £95,000. This was followed by the draft regulations…

McCloud court case  - background When the LGPS changed from a final salary to a career average pension scheme in 2014, protections for older scheme members were introduced. Similar protections were p…

Making sure transferring employees (or former employees on a re-tender) have pensions protection, is a legal requirement. In most cases, this means that they should have continued access to the LGPS. …

Association of Local Authority Medical Advisers (A L A M A) have confirmed that ill health applications should continue to progress during the pandemic. The following statement has been published on t…

In March, the person in your organisation responsible for LGPS pension issues will have been sent  an email setting out the year end requirements. Attached to the email were: Form lgs121a – Year e…

The Government has confirmed that the McCloud judgment applies to all public service pension schemes. We must remind you that LGPS members don’t need to make an employment tribunal claim for the remed…

We want to draw your attention to the questions about furloughed staff on the LGPS FAQ page as pension benefits will be affected if members aren't getting 100% of their usual pay. Furloughed members s…

Our fund actuary, Mercer, has released a news alert about accounting assumptions used in IAS19 and FRS101/102 calculations this year. Mercer issue this alert every year, however this year it's more de…

Keep up-to-date on our latest webinar news by visiting our new employer webinar page. Here you'll find all information about our previous webinars, including recordings and slides. We'll also post new…

Our communications policy and funding strategy statements have been updated. You can find these documents on the Fund strategies, policies and statements webpage, or under the Relates Pages link.

We've recently sent out the following message to our members as advised by the Scheme Advisory Board (SAB).  "We want to remind our members that the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is a define…

When the government reformed public service pension schemes in 2014 and 2015, they introduced protections for older scheme members. The Court of Appeal ruled that younger members of the Judges’ and Fi…

Thank you to those of you who virtually attended our webinar on Thursday 12 March about the year end process.  We would appreciate any feedback. The feedback form can be found under Related Links. I…

If you attended our employer meeting in November you‘ll have been handed your initial valuation results on the day. Those of you who didn’t attend should have received your results by email.  To find…

If you have employees who leave one role and start a new role the next day, we record this as a post number change unless you tell us it's a ‘new employment’, in which case, a PEN007 leavers form…

The Shropshire County Pension Fund is required by The Local Government Pension Scheme (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2004 to prepare and publish a funding strategy statement ('FSS').  An…

In January we ran our first webinar for our employers. Thank you to those who attended. The slides are now available to view by clicking the link under Documents. Upcoming webinar on the year-end…

Although not directly an LGPS issue, we’d like to make our employers aware that in November 2019, NHS England signed off on plans to pay the pension tax bills of clinicians if the tax charge arises in…

The pensions administration strategy statement has recently been updated. You can find this document on the Fund strategies, policies and statements page of our website or under Related Links.  The p…

We have a communications policy statement which sets out how and when we communicate with you and our members. We use a variety of methods to make sure members can access their pension information whe…

The Shropshire County Pension Fund annual meeting took place on 28th November 2019 in the Council Chamber at the Shirehall. You can now watch the video of the meeting on the annual meeting web page.…

The ‘Pensions Made Simple’ member videos created in collaboration with the Local Government Association, are now available to view on our website. There are seven short videos in total which cover a…

We're currently reviewing the contact forms and authorising signatories we hold for all our employers. We'll be contacting employers whose details may be out of date. If you receive an email, please h…

When processing data for year end, we've noticed that some employers are not ceasing casual/ time-sheet staff and treating these members as leavers from the pension scheme, even when they haven’t work…

Back in February, the Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) paused the cost management process due to uncertainty surrounding an on-going court case, known as the McCloud and Sergeant case. As a reminder, the c…

The LGA has commissioned a data retention policy template which we encourage you to use and display on your website. The document sets out what data you should keep for members of the LGPS and for how…

The Fund's Annual Report & Accounts highlight the important issues affecting the Fund over the previous twelve months, together with full details about it's administration performance. Follow the…

The HR and Payroll guides have been updated and are available under the guides and sample documents page of the LGPS website (Link under 'Related Links'). The guides set out the requirements for payr…

The LGPS Secretariat has released further guidance for employers on how APCs work and how the amount of extra or lost pension purchased is added to a member’s active pension account. You can find…

The Local Government Association have released a response to the government's consultation on restricting exit payments in the public sector. Their response can be found under Related Links. Section…

The LGPC Secretariat has released the latest LGPS full scheme guide for employees in England and Wales. This can be found on our Forms and Guides page, under 'Related Links', or by clicking the image…

Back in January we informed you of some scheme changes proposed by the Scheme Advisory Board (SAB), resulting from the cost management process taking place across all public service schemes including…

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) have opened a twelve week policy consultation closing on 31 July 2019. It covers the following areas: amendments to the local fund valu…

We’ve just released new guides for active and deferred members who are thinking of retiring. These guides will be useful for your active members who are approaching retirement age or for those membe…

Back in May 2015, the government announced its intention to cap exit payments for public sector workers. It was proposed that a cap of £95,000 would apply to all types of payments in relation to indiv…

What is an actuary? In a nutshell, an actuary is a business professional who analyses the financial effects of risk. Actuaries use mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study the uncertain…