Automatic enrolment

Auto enrolment rules run alongside the LGPS regulations and must be followed first. Under the regulations that govern the LGPS, most new employees are contractually enrolled as the LGPS is a qualifying scheme for automatic enrolment. Employees that're contractually enrolled will be unaffected by automatic enrolment unless they elect to opt out of the LGPS. All eligible employees under the age of 75 should be contractually enrolled into the LGPS on appointment unless their contract of employment is for less than three months. This page should be read in conjunction with the 'who can join/opt out page'.

From 1 October 2012, and subject to your staging date, all workers must be automatically enrolled into a qualifying pension scheme. This is known as automatic enrolment or auto-enrolment. 

For the purpose of auto-enrolment, workers are put into three different categories depending on how much they earn and their age.

The categories are:

• eligible jobholders
• non-eligible jobholders
• entitled workers

Only eligible jobholders are automatically enrolled. Entitled workers are not automatically enrolled, but can make an election to join. To help employers in the LGPS, the Local Government Association (LGA) have released a guide. 

The below table (2023/2024) shows how the different types of workers are classified: