Employer discretions
What are the Employer Discretions?
There are discretionary elements within the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for which a scheme employer is required to have both decided and published its policy.
These discretions are important as they allow employers to state how, when, and in what circumstances, it will exercise its discretion.
Employers must formulate, publish, and keep under review a policy statement in relation to the exercise of a number of discretions under the LGPS.
A copy of your published policy statement must be sent to Surrey Pension Fund.
If you decide to amend the policy, you must send a copy of the new policy to the Surrey Pension Fund within a month of the date of any revisions to the policy.
In formulating and reviewing your policy you are required by the Regulations to have regard to the extent to which the exercise of your discretionary powers could lead to a serious loss of confidence in the public service.
You must also have regard to legislation outside of the scheme rules and make sure that your policies do not infringe anti-discrimination laws in areas of gender, race, age, and so on.
It should be noted that there are many other areas in which you can exercise your discretion for which a policy is optional. For example, extension of the year time limit to allow a transfer in or an extension of 30 day limit to elect for a Shared Cost Additional Pension Contribution (SCAPC) in respect of unpaid leave.
It can be beneficial to hold a policy in these areas to allow for an equal and consistent decision making process in these matters, which in turn, would provide evidence to support any decisions that are challenged.
You will not be able to exercise any of these discretions until you have a published policy in place.
For a full list of discretions together with more information on the key discretions upon which you should have a published policy, please refer to the 'Discretions List' and 'Discretions Policies' papers within the Guides and sample documents section under Local Government Administration resources, which include a number of tips for employers.
Please refer to our Guide to Scheme Employer LGPS Discretionary Policies (PDF) for additional guidance.