Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2002

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations replace certain provisions of the Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 (S.R. 2000 No. 177) (as amended) and constitute the occupational pension scheme for persons employed by a local authority or engaged in other employment, who are active members of the Scheme on or after the commencement date of these Regulations, and replace them in part for other members in accordance with the Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment No. 2 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2002 (S.R. 2002 No. 353).

The main changes are as follows –

Part II

• regulation 4(1) provides that agreements to enable employees of admitted bodies to be members of the Scheme may provide that periods of employment before the date of the agreement may count as Scheme membership;

• regulation 5 simplifies the restrictions on eligibility for membership to exclude only those who have access to another occupational pension scheme, part-time firemen and any person who, as a member of staff of the University of Ulster, is eligible to participate in the Universities' Superannuation Scheme;

• regulation 8(6) provides that periods of membership before and after unpaid maternity absence or parental leave in respect of which the member does not pay any contributions are treated as a continuous period;

• regulation 11 sets a standardised contribution rate of 6 per cent. for all new members. At present manual employees pay 5 per cent. and others 6 per cent. Regulation 13 protects the position of existing manual employees currently paying 5 per cent. as they will continue to do so;

• regulation 14 gives employers a new discretion to reduce or waive a member’s contribution once 40 years membership has been reached;

• regulations 15, 25, 53, 55, 57, and 61 and Schedule 4 set out overriding Inland Revenue limits on the amount of benefits which a member is entitled to under the Scheme;

• regulation 16 ensures that periods of unpaid statutory ordinary maternity leave are treated as periods of membership;

• regulations 22 to 24 define final pay and extend the provision for protecting the value of a member’s pension following a change in the circumstances of employment e.g. when pensionable pay is reduced for reasons outside a member’s control;

• regulation 26 defines the normal retirement age for new members as 65 but protects the position of existing members who may retire between the ages of 60 and 65;

• regulation 29 continues the provision for ill-health retirement benefits where a member leaves employment by reason of being permanently incapable of discharging efficiently the duties of that employment including any other comparable employment with his employer;

• regulation 30 provides that the maximum period which may be added to a member’s total membership period to calculate his enhanced membership period in respect of all his local government employments is 10 years;

• regulation 33 gives members aged at least 50 (instead of from age 60) the right to apply for early payment of Scheme benefits (subject, in the case of members aged less than 60 to the consent of the employer). Benefits paid under these circumstances are subject to the “85 year rule” to decide if they should be actuarially reduced. This test is satisfied if the total of the employee’s age and membership is equal to or greater than 85. Where the test is not satisfied a reduction in benefits is applied. An employing authority, instead of the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers' Superannuation Committee (NILGOSC), may determine on compassionate grounds that benefits should not be reduced;

• regulation 34 places the onus on a deferred member to elect to carry earlier periods of membership forward on rejoining the Scheme, enabling an election to be made at any time during the fresh period of membership;

• regulation 35 provides a method of calculating membership where one of two concurrent employments terminates and the member elects to keep the periods of service aggregated for the purposes of calculating benefits;

• regulations 46 to 50 define an eligible child for the purposes of children’s pension rights and provide a simplified structure for the payment of children’s pensions. The test of financial dependency required in the case of a child who is not the legitimate or adopted child of a member is extended to include a posthumous child who would have been dependent on that member;

Part III

• regulation 54 gives employers a new discretionary power to augment Scheme membership by up to 6⅔ years on the termination of a member’s employment for members aged 50 or over;

• regulation 60 allows members and deferred pensioners an option to convert part or all of their retirement grant to provide extra pension;

• regulation 61 allows those members who joined the Scheme before March 1987, to convert part of their pension for additional retirement grant;

• regulations 62 to 68 set out a simplified structure for the payment of additional voluntary contributions and give the member the option to transfer the accumulated value of the contributions into additional Scheme membership;

• regulation 62(11) specifically provides for the transfer into a member’s additional voluntary contributions scheme of the accumulated value from other additional voluntary contribution schemes;

• regulation 66 allows a longer period after retirement i.e. up to age 75 (65 at present), before the value of additional voluntary contributions must be used to pay for a pension;

• regulation 68 (elections as to accumulated value of additional voluntary contributions) only allows the use of the accumulated value of the additional voluntary contributions to provide a Scheme benefit when a member ceases to be an active member of the Scheme with immediate entitlement to a pension. This does not affect the rights of a member who entered into the additional voluntary contributions scheme before this change takes effect;

• regulations 69 to 74 allow employers to set up a shared-cost additional voluntary contributions scheme with members. The facility of a jointly funded scheme will give members the option to transfer the accumulated value of the contributions into additional Scheme membership;

Part IV

• regulation 78 gives NILGOSC the power to set revised contribution rates for employers with immediate effect where the costs to the pension fund exceed the assumptions stated in the rates and adjustment certificate obtained under regulation 77, which would otherwise determine these rates. It also allows the actuary to provide, in certain circumstances, that where an outgoing admission body cannot pay revised contributions to the fund, that liability is borne by the Scheme employer who is party to the admission agreement;

• regulation 82 gives NILGOSC the power to charge interest where an employing authority is more than 10 days overdue in making certain payments to the pension fund;

• regulation 98(5) introduces specific requirements as to the independence of the registered medical practitioner who is required to produce a certificate in connection with ill-health retirements;

• regulation 108 requires employers and NILGOSC to formulate, publish and keep under review, policy statements concerning the exercise of their discretionary functions. Employers and NILGOSC are required to consult each other on the formulation of policy;

• regulations 112 and 113 give NILGOSC the discretion to decide its own policy on abatement (that is the extent to which the amount of retirement pension payable to a member should be reduced on re-employment);

• r– egulations 119 to 123 apply the provisions in the Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Act 1993 about transfers of rights out of occupational pension schemes with a few modifications and enable an alternative basis to be used where bulk transfers out of the Scheme are made by agreement;

• regulations 124 to 128 set out a simplified procedure for transferring rights into the Scheme, operating on a cash equivalent transfer basis, and provide for adjustments between pension funds where internal transfers occur;

• regulation 130 gives employers the discretion to convert awards made under the Local Government (Discretionary Payments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001 into Scheme membership.