New starters

Enrol employees into the LGPS

You’ll need to make eligible employees members of the main section of the LGPS. Most employees under 75 and with a contract of 3 months or more are enrolled automatically. Employees of:

• designating bodies (e.g., town and parish councils), and
• admission bodies (e.g., contractors)

can only join if the employer nominates them.

Employees with a contract of less than 3 months can join the LGPS:

• if they opt in
• if you extend their contract to 3 or more months
• on their automatic enrolment date if they’re an eligible jobholder.

You’ll need to let us know about the following new starters through your i-Connect returns:

• new employees with automatic entry
• employees that have been nominated for membership
• members that opted out who’d like to rejoin
• members that opted out but have been re-enrolled automatically.

Please get in touch if you’re not sure how to do this.

We need your new starter information by the 19^th of the following month. This is because by law we must send all new members a communication within two months of them joining the LGPS. Please make sure you include a home email address for your employees. This will help our communications to be more effective.

Contributions

It’s your responsibility to assign the correct employee contribution rate for each of your members in the LGPS. When a person is first brought into the LGPS you must put them in the main section and pay full contributions. You need to work out which band a person falls within by using their actual pensionable pay. If a person has more than one job with you, you need to assess each of their jobs separately and apply the correct contribution band for each one. You can find the latest contribution rate bandings and how to pay them on the ‘What do I need to do?’ page.

Communications

You must give all new starters:

• their contribution rate
• the date they joined the LGPS
• the right of appeal under the internal dispute resolution procedure (IDRP)
• a copy of the Brief guide to the LGPS
• a Membership information form
• a Death grant expression of wish form

You can find copies of the forms and guide on our Forms and guides page. They’ll need to fill in both forms and send them to us.

It’s also helpful to share the links to their relevant Pension Fund website and the LGPS members website:

• pensions.cambridgeshire.gov.uk or
• pensions.westnorthants.gov.uk
• lgpsmember.org

Pension transfers

Any member who started with you within the last 12 months, may be allowed to move an old pension into the LGPS.

LGPS England and Wales

If their old pension is with another LGPS fund in England or Wales, the transfer will happen automatically if they left their old Fund after April 2014.  We’ll let the member know before this takes place. If they don’t want to move their old LGPS pension, they’ll need to fill in and return the form in the letter they had.

All other pension schemes

If they’ve an old pension with:

• another LGPS fund in Scotland or Northern Ireland or
• with any other scheme

they’ll need to apply to transfer these benefits into the LGPS. They won’t be transferred automatically. If a member wants to do this, they’ll need to fill in the form included in the Transfer in pack (including Non-England and Wales LGPS).

If they started with you more than 12 months ago, they’ll not generally be able to move an old pension into the LGPS. However, if both you, and the administering authority agree, this deadline can be extended in exceptional cases.