Employer responsibilities

We deal with around:

• 260 employers
• 24,000 active employees
• 29,000 ex-employees
• 19,400 pensioners

The employers include a range of scheduled bodies (major and smaller), admitted bodies and independent schools in Buckinghamshire. Scheduled Bodies are required to offer LGPS membership to their employees. Admitted Bodies are employers who have entered into an admission agreement with us to allow their employees to join the LGPS.

The LGPS is a statutory scheme, governed by the Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations. These regulations outline your statutory responsibilities as an LGPS employer. In brief, your main responsibilities are to:

• determine the eligibility for Scheme membership of your employees, bringing eligible employees into the LGPS and dealing with opt outs
• make an assessment and decision, at least once a year, on the rate of contributions a member will make based on pensionable pay for each job and notify the member of their contribution rate. Notify members where their assessed contribution rate has changed
• for multiple employments, ensure contributions are made and recorded correctly for each job i.e. each job treated separately
• notify the Fund of new entrants to the LGPS
• notify the Fund of any material changes to pensionable employees, such as absence information
• notify the Fund of LGPS leavers
• process ill health cases, decide the appropriate “tier” for ill health retirements and notify the Fund accordingly
• collect and pay over to the Pension Fund employer and employee pension contributions and AVCs to the appropriate party
• provide accurate contribution and membership data when requested, including at the end of year
• notify us of any changes / mergers to the organisation that will impact on your participation in the Fund including transfer of staff under TUPE, mergers with other organisations or another decision which may materially affect the employer's Fund membership
• make appropriate employer decisions when required and fulfil the employer role within the internal dispute resolution process
• make a decision on the LGPS employer discretions for your organisation, supply us with a copy of the policy statement and publish these for your current and former members to view

While you may have delegated some of these functions to a third party provider, as the scheme employer you are still responsible for these actions. Please check to ensure that these functions are being actioned correctly and within prescribed timescales.

Timescales may originate from the LGPS Regulations, overriding legislation or from locally agreed targets, as detailed in our roles and responsibilities document.

• LGPS Pension Scheme Tax Reference (PSTR): 00329946RE
• Pension Fund Pension Scheme Tax Registration (PSTR): 00328524RG
• The Pensions Regulator's Pension Scheme Registry (PSR) number for the Pension Fund: 10123049
• Scheme Contracted Out Number (SCON): S2700138P - contracting out ceased from April 2016

To download our Scheme members documents visit Employers’ guides, forms and booklets