LGPS underpin protection extended to more people

If you’ve been reading our newsletters, you may have already heard about the McCloud Judgement. This 2018 court of appeal ruling found that public service pension schemes had discriminated on the grounds of age by only providing protection for older members when they reformed in 2014/2015. Since the ruling, the government has been consulting on ways to remove discrimination from all public service schemes including the LGPS.

On 1 October 2023 changes were made to the LGPS regulations to extend underpin protection to more people. If you qualify for the protection under the revised rules, we’ll check to see if the pension you built up between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2022 would be higher if it was worked out using the final salary method.

More information about the underpin and the qualification criteria can be found at: The McCloud Judgement.

We are sending letters out to all LGPS members who we think could be in scope for the changes. Letters will be uploaded to ‘my pension online’ by 31 December 2023. If we have your email address, we will email you to let you know it’s ready.

If you haven’t registered for ‘my pension online’ you will need to complete this process first. Please see the My Pension Online webpage for more information on how to register and login.

If you’ve opted out of ‘my pension online’, you’ll receive your letter in the post.

If you receive a letter, it doesn’t mean that you definitely qualify for the protection. This change won’t affect everyone. Please read the letter carefully. You can also use the ‘Am I affected’ tool on the national LGPS website to see if you may be eligible for the protection.

If you think you’re affected, you don’t need to ask us to apply the protection, we will do this automatically when you take your pension.

The letter includes a form that you can complete to tell us about any public service pension scheme membership that could mean you qualify for underpin protection. Under the new rules you could qualify if you paid into a public service pension scheme before 1 April 2012 and meet the other qualifying criteria.

You don’t need to tell us about:

• LGPS pension you hold with us
• any pension benefits you transferred into your Buckinghamshire LGPS pension
• any pension benefits you built up after 1 April 2012

You should only use the form to tell us about any pension built up before 1 April 2012 in

• another LGPS Fund that has not been combined with your Buckinghamshire LGPS pension, or,
• another public service pension scheme

For more information visit The McCloud Judgement.