Employer Focus - December 2019
This bulletin from the Staffordshire Pension Fund, focuses on current issues that you should be aware of relating to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
If you wish to print out this information, please select the document below:
Staffordshire Pension Fund has continued to see a rapid and significant increase in the number and type of different employers joining the Fund. This has coincided with more complex demands for accurate and regular data updates for the Local Government Pension Scheme 2014 'career average' structure as well as increased scrutiny on the accuracy and currency of data by the Pensions Regulator.
To comply with these requirements, Staffordshire Pension Fund requires all participating employers to submit monthly member data through our i-Connect data portal.
Originally our aim was to ensure that all our employers were using the system by April 2020 and past this date, all non-participating employers, would be asked to pay an administrative charge for the resources needed to administer active members in the Fund, outside of i-Connect.
Current position
Although good progress has been made and we now receive a significant proportion of the Fund’s active member data through i-Connect on a monthly basis, it is becoming increasingly apparent that more time will be required before all employers can be signed up to i-Connect.
As a result, there will not be an administration charge made to those employers who do not use the i-Connect system from April 2020. However, we would encourage all employers not using i-Connect to engage with us as soon as possible, so that we can introduce this new method of data exchange to you at the earliest opportunity.
Any employers that have not engaged will be charged an administration charge for not using i-Connect once we have the majority of employers and their payroll providers on board. We will notify you when this is the case.
The Fund's AGM was held on 12 November 2019 and once again proved to be a successful event. Presentations were made by Fund officers and Hymans Robertson (Fund actuary) and covered the following:
- Annual scheme reports and accounts, year ended 31 March 2019
- Fund's 2019 valuation results
- LGPS central pooling update
A full copy of the AGM presentations is available on our latest news page.
Please note: the following only applies to employers whose employer contribution rate is set at 3 yearly intervals in line with the actuary's rates and adjustment certificate. If the contribution rate your organisation pays is fixed for the life of your current contract the Fund actuarial valuation will not alter the contribution rate your organisation pays and for this reason you will not have received the information outlined below.
As a participating employer in the Staffordshire Pension Fund, you will have recently received notification of your employer's valuation 2019. The valuation is an important exercise as it sets out your organisation's obligation to the Fund for the next three years.
Action required
Read and consider the actuarial valuation results for your organisation. Respond to the Pension Team, if you have any comments or wish to discuss your actuarial valuation results further.
If your queries are of a technical nature e.g. the meaning of certain terms or the background to the Fund or the actuarial valuation, then please read the funding strategy statement and explanatory notes first, as this might answer your question.
In last month's edition of Employer Focus, we briefed employers on a claim brought about by Judge McCloud and other members of the Judicial Pension Scheme which would have implications for the LGPS.
We understand that the LGPS will be treated separately from the rest of the public sector pension schemes. It is likely that the remedy will involve the extension of some form of underpin to members in scope who are not currently protected.
Therefore, as detailed in last month’s Employer Focus, we require all employers to retain hour changes, plus service breaks and salary details for all employees past and present from 1 April 2014. This should include the contractual hours per week, the effective date and the contractual hours during that period.
At this stage we do not require employers to submit this additional information to the Fund. However, it is vitally important employers maintain the employee contractual hours history which will be required by the Fund in the future.
On 16 October 2019, the Office of National Statistics announced that the consumer price index (CPI) rate for September was 1.7%. Government policy in recent years has been to base both pensions increases and revaluation of members pension accounts by the rate of CPI for September of the previous year.
We await confirmation that the revaluation of pension accounts and the pension increase to apply to deferred LGPS pension and LGPS pensions in payment in April 2019 will be 1.7%, which will become payable in April 2020.
If you require any further information or clarification, please do not hesitate to get in touch: