Local Government Pension Scheme in England and Wales - Access and Fairness

Background

Many public service pension schemes, including the LGPS, provide that under certain circumstances a member’s accrued pension rights may be forfeited. A forfeiture certificate of LGPS benefits is only issued in cases where a member has been convicted of an offence deemed to be gravely injurious to the state or liable to lead to a serious loss of confidence in the public service. Further, employers may recover against any financial losses they have incurred as a result of the offence rather than issue a forfeiture direction after issue of the certificate. Forfeiture provisions for the LGPS are set out in regulations 91 to 95 of the 2013 Regulations. 

The government has four proposals, intended to make the forfeiture process work better and fix known issues with current regulations: 

1. To remove the requirement that a member must have left employment because of the offence for forfeiture to be possible; 

2. To abolish the current three-month time limit for an application to be made; 

3. To remove the current regulations around interim payment directions 

4. To publish guidance on making a forfeiture application.