The role of the employer

LGPS employer responsibilities

The LGPS is a statutory scheme, governed by the Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations, which outline your statutory responsibilities as an LGPS employer.

In brief, your main responsibilities include:

  • Determine the eligibility for Scheme membership of your employees, bringing eligible employees into the LGPS and dealing with opt outs or moves to the different sections of the scheme.
  • Make an assessment and decision, at the start of the employment and 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, or their revised rate where their assessed contribution rate has changed.
  • Ensure data and contributions are recorded correctly for each employment, including any material changes to pensionable employees, such as absence information.
  • Process ill health cases, deciding the appropriate Tier for ill health retirements.
  • 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 Surrey Pension Fund of all starters, opt outs, leavers, deaths, etc., in a timely manner.
  • Notification of any changes / mergers to the organisation that will impact on your participation in the Fund including transfer of staff under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE), mergers with other organisations or another decision which may materially affect the employer's Fund membership.
  • Make appropriate employer decisions when required and fulfill the employer role within the internal dispute resolution process.
  • Decide on the LGPS employer discretions for your organisation and supply Surrey Pension Fund with a copy of the published policy statement.
  • Complete the relevant sections of the Personal Data Retention Policy and publish it on your website.

If you have delegated some of these functions to a third-party provider, as the scheme employer, you are still responsible for these obligations.

Please check to ensure that these functions are being actioned correctly by your third-party provider and within the prescribed timescales. Timescales may originate from the LGPS Regulations, overriding legislation or from locally agreed targets.

Please remember to include either a work email address or a personal email address for members when submitting information, as it is more efficient, cost effective and environmentally friendly for us to contact members using their email address.

In accordance with Regulation 59 of the 2013 Regulations, the Administering Authority may prepare a written Pension Administration Strategy of its policy in relation to communications between and levels of performance for both the Surrey Pension Fund and employers within the scheme.

The Pension Administration Strategy (PDF) sets out the expected levels of administration performance of both the Surrey Pension Fund and the employers within the Fund, as well as details on how performance levels will be monitored and the action that might be taken where persistent failure occurs.

How we keep in contact

Surrey Pension Team will periodically send out a newsletter, to keep you informed with updates regarding the LGPS and other useful information.

We send all our active, deferred and pensioner members newsletters, to keep them informed of any changes to the LGPS and to provide information regarding the Scheme.

Useful links