The Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2008

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Local Government Pension Scheme (Administration) Regulations 2008 (“the Administration Regulations”) in consequence of the dissolution of the Housing Corporation, and the establishment of the Homes and Communities Agency and the Regulator of Social Housing, by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008.

Regulation 3 (which comes into force on 1st April 2009) omits references to the Housing Corporation and the Commission for the New Towns from the list of community admission bodies in regulation 5 of the Administration Regulations.

Regulation 4 makes technical amendments to the Administration Regulations to provide pensions continuity for staff of the Housing Corporation who are transferred to the new bodies by transfer schemes made under the 2008 Act, and to ensure an agreed prudent management of ongoing pension liabilities with the administering authority.

The amendments are to regulation 38 of the Local Government Pension Scheme (Administration) Regulations 2008. The effect of the amendments is to disapply regulation 38(2), which would have imposed an obligation on the administering authority to obtain an actuarial valuation of the liabilities of the fund and a revised rates and adjustments certificate. Instead, an obligation is imposed on the Homes and Communities Agency and the Regulator of Social Housing to enter into arrangements with the administering authority of the pension scheme to secure the funding of the pensions liabilities of transferred or former staff of the Housing Corporation. Those arrangements must include provision for the deficit relating to those staff to be calculated on the basis of the last triennial actuarial valuation, revalorised to 30th November 2008.

The amendments also impose reporting obligations on the Homes and Communities Agency and the Regulator of Social Housing to notify the Secretary of State if a future actuarial valuation of the pension funds discloses that an increased individual adjustment is required.

Finally, the amendments provide that the transferred staff are to be treated as having complied with certain application and notice provisions that would otherwise have applied.

A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no impact on the private or voluntary sectors is foreseen.