Employer newsletter - October 2024

The Forum is a great opportunity to learn about a variety of topics relating to the Local Government Pension Scheme and interact with fellow employers and colleagues from the East Sussex Pension Fund. 

Feedback from employers who attended last year’s event was very positive, with the overall Forum being scored 8.55 out of 10 for usefulness.

This year’s Forum will be held virtually via Microsoft Teams on:

Thursday 28th November 2024 between 10am - 3pm.

Please confirm your attendance via email to [email protected] and save the date to your diary. An official teams invite will follow once you have confirmed your attendance. 

We have recently relaunched a website called ‘My Pension’ which provides online access for members to their Local Government Pension Scheme account(s).  

The new and improved site will make it far easier for members to keep up with their pension. 

What’s new in ‘My Pension’?

•    Simpler login - No need to remember usernames, security questions. Log in with an email address and password.

•    Improved security – there will be a one-off process to set up two-stage authentication. This will improve the website security as well as simplifying ongoing access.

•    Updated look and design – making the site easier for members to find what they are looking for. With more graphics to aid understanding, updated branding, and colour schemes. The website is also accessible.

•    New retirement planner – this will allow members to set retirement goals and identify whether they are on track to reach them.

•    Annual Benefit statements – broken down into simpler chunks to aid member’s understanding of what benefits they have accrued in their pension. 

‘My Pension’ will retain many of the existing features. Including the ability to update personal details, nominations and more. Moving online saves money on stationery and postage. It also helps reduce our carbon footprint.

There is a page on our website dedicated to the launch, including instructions for registration.

We would appreciate if you could mention ‘My Pension’ in any ‘pension’ conversations you are having with your employees. We are looking to create a campaign to increase registrations. We would be grateful if you could let us know if you have an intranet site or other internal communication channels where we could remind members of the benefits of using 'My Pension' and the importance of registering. 

Contact [email protected] if this is an area where you can help.

New, improved ‘My Pension’ is live | East Sussex Pension Fund

We have had approximately 12,800 members sign up since we went live in mid-July and will continue to remind members to register if they haven’t yet done so.

Our Fund Actuary Barnett Waddingham will be preparing for the next  triennial valuation of the East Sussex Pension Fund at 31 March 2025. 

The triennial valuation is an exercise where the current funding strategy is reviewed. The triennial valuation is statutory requirement and is based on different funding assumptions to your IAS19 annual accounting valuations. 

Key outputs of this valuation is the review of each employers’ funding level and to set new contribution rates for the Fund’s participating employers for the period 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2029.

The Actuary looks at the Fund's liabilities, its assets, expected market conditions and current contribution levels.

Based on these areas, and taking account of the funding strategy and different circumstances that employers operate in, the review sets the contribution level for the three years following the completion of the valuation. Employer contributions are made up of two elements:

1) The estimated cost of future benefits being built up each year, after members’ own contributions and an allowance for the Fund’s administration expenses. This is referred to as the “Primary rate”, and is expressed as a percentage of members’ pensionable pay; plus 

2) An adjustment to the Primary rate referred to as the “Secondary rate”. In broad terms, the Secondary rate is in respect of benefits already accrued at the valuation date, which could be in surplus or deficit thus creating either a positive or negative rate.  

The Primary rate plus the Secondary rate gives the Total rate which we aim to keep as stable as possible to avoid future shocks for employers. Given the long term nature of the liabilities the rates are effectively smoothed. 

The below outlines the key milestones in the 2025 valuation. These timings might change but we will let you know if they do:

• 31 March 2025: The effective date of the valuation. All benefits built up to this date will be valued.
• 30 April 2025: Data is held by the Fund, from all Employers with up-to-date membership data for the year ending 31 March 2025 following the March i-Connect file upload or an End of Year Return. The Fund may contact you if we have any queries regarding the data provided.
• July 2025: We will submit the data to the Fund Actuary. The actuary will use this data to calculate each employer's funding level and contribution rate.
• October 2025: The Fund will review initial whole Fund valuation results and review and revise the Funding Strategy Statement, to recognise different employer strategies and any regulatory changes.
• November 2025: Employer Forum with the Fund Actuary present where initial contribution rates will be shared with employers. Commence Funding Strategy Statement Consultation.
• February 2026: Review Funding Strategy Statement Consultation responses and amend the strategy for approval.
• March 2026: All valuation results are finalised. The Fund Actuary issues final Valuation Report and a Rates and Adjustments certificate to each employer. New LGPS31 forms will be issued to employers.
• April 2026: New employer contributions take effect.

We will update you again as this works moves forward.

Note: Barnett Waddingham (our Scheme Actuary) will be providing more detailed information for employers at our upcoming virtual Employer Forum on the 26^th of November (10am – 3pm). You can confirm your attendance via email to [email protected].

The Fund are currently setting up training sessions to support members of the Fund, which will commence in 2025. The need for member training is backed up by the 2023 survey results with 25% of members stating that training would be useful. We also know that employees come to you direct with questions.

From 2025 we will start running the following sessions:

• Introduction to the LGPS
• Your Pensions MOT
• Getting ready for retirement

All courses will be held virtually via MS Teams in January, May and October (2 dates per month for each course). We will consider face to face sessions where it is logistically and financially viable to run the courses. 

We will be in touch soon with further details, including booking instructions. We would love to work with employers to help with promotion via any employee communication avenues you use. Please contact [email protected] if you can work with us on this. 

The engagement team are happy to provide support and in-person training for employers. If you have a specific training requirement and need our help, please email us at:

[email protected]

Please note that the LGA also offer employer training courses. Click on the links below for more details.

•        LGA bite-sized training - Employer bite size training (lgpsregs.org)

•        LGA Employer role training course - Local Government Association

National Pension Tracing Day is on 29 October.

Billions of pounds have been lost in pensions when transferring between schemes. As many as 1 in 20 people could have lost a pension and this website provides helpful resources to help employees track down pension benefits that they are entitled to, including: 

•    a video guide
•    a written step-by-step guide
•    warnings about common pitfalls.

 Visit the National Pension Tracing website to find out more.

We continue to onboard the last remaining employers onto i-Connect, a live cloud service for the flow of employee information from your payroll system to the Funds pension administration system. If any employers are keen and ready to be onboarded, please get in touch.

We will soon be introducing an annual check to ensure that the right individuals at employer/payroll companies have appropriate access to perform their roles on i-Connect. This will also help us tidy up any accounts that are no longer required. 

There is an i-Connect support page available on our website, which includes a range of guides to help you carry out your roles.

I-Connect | East Sussex Pension Fund 

If you have any queries about i-Connect please contact the team by email at:
[email protected]

We have a designated team who are responsible for supporting employers with all things i-Connect related.

Hayley Deeley - Senior Pensions & i-Connect Administrator

Joyee Lau - Pensions & I-Connect Administrator

Julianne Lambert - Pensions & i-Connect Administrator

We have a dedicated i-Connect Email Inbox:

[email protected]

We regularly produce newsletters to help members keep up to date with their Local Government Pension Scheme. And we are after your help!

We do of course try to ensure we communicate with members ourselves, but the reality is that some people won’t read or see the emails we send or visit the website to view the newsletter. It would be great if employers could share the newsletters or promote them via available communication channels.

Active member newsletter - Newsletter (active members) - June 2024 | East Sussex Pension Fund

Authorised signatory forms are vitally important as they provide the Fund with the names and contact details of individuals who can act on behalf of the employer in various specified roles – see screenshot below. 

This form should be completed by the Section 151 officer / Chief Financial Officer (who is responsible for the payment of LGPS31 contributions) or an appropriate delegate. The form should be sent via email from an employer email address, with the section 151 officer / CFO copied in. By doing so we are assuming they approve the information provided. This is a recent change and means we no longer need signatures, which we know was sometimes difficult (especially with individuals often working from home or in different locations).

We are also starting to conduct an annual check with employers that the people named are still up-to date. You will receive an email on this soon.

The Fund offer a range of support material for employers. Here’s a reminder…

Employer Toolkit

We appreciate that sometimes it can seem daunting being an employer in the LGPS. What with:

Complying with regulation / Meeting deadlines / Understanding processes / Supporting employees / Data submission and more. 

That is why East Sussex Pension Fund provide an Employer Toolkit.

The toolkit is split into six sections covering the following topics:

Access Employer Toolkit here

HR guide

This guide sets out the requirements for Human Resource (HR) departments of employers who provide the LGPS.

Access HR Guide here

Payroll guide

This guide sets out the requirements for payrolls in respect of the LGPS.

Access Payroll Guide here

Ill health retirement guide

This guide is to help employers understand what constitutes ill health retirement within the LGPS regulations and details their role in supporting members through the process.

Access Ill Health retirement guide here

Forms

We also have standard and editable forms available for both employers and members.

Access forms here

Please can you make sure you only use the forms that are available on the website. We would ask that you delete any forms which may be saved in folders or on personal drives. The Fund are still receiving old versions of forms which creates additional work for everyone. Please also pay particular attention to any instructions on forms when completing them. If we receive invalid or incorrect information it will have a bearing on the time taken to complete a process. 

The Department for Work and Pensions, via the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), is creating a Pension Dashboard that will be free for all UK citizens to use to view their pension information securely, online and in one place, even if living abroad. All pension schemes in the UK, including the LGPS need to connect to the dashboard ecosystem to provide pension members information in a secure way. The project is being managed by the Pension Dashboard Programme, you can see all about them at the Pension dashboard website here.

Why does the Government want to set up a Pension Dashboard?

The aim is simple, they want the pension industry to provide clear and simple information about an individual’s multiple pension savings, including their State Pension. They also want the industry to help people reconnect with any lost pension pots they have.

When will it be launched?

We don’t know when the pension dashboards will go live for public use, but the Government has promised six months’ notice. Meanwhile pension schemes have been given staging dates to ensure their data has onboarded. The Local Authorities in the LGPS must connect by 31 October 2025. It is widely speculated that public access will not be before that date.

Do you need to do anything?

It is up to schemes, administrators and employers to make sure that member data is accurate and up to date whilst the industry works on the technical and technological framework to deliver the dashboard. So, we will be working alongside employers in the future to ensure that all member data we hold is accurate. Please note that the member data is in respect of the Active & Deferred members only as the dashboards will not have access to any pension in payment information.

Unless you’re new to local government, you have probably heard about the McCloud remedy.

When the Government reformed public service pension schemes in 2014 and 2015, it introduced protections for older members. However, in December 2018, the Court of Appeal ruled that younger members of the Judges’ and Firefighters’ pension schemes had been discriminated against because the protections did not apply to them. In October 2023, the Government introduced Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment) (No.3) Regulations 2023 which changed all public service pension schemes, including the LGPS, to remove the discrimination. The ruling is often referred to as the ‘McCloud judgement’ after a member of the Judges’ pension scheme involved in the case. The changes to remove the discrimination are known as the ‘McCloud remedy’.

The Fund would like to thank employers for providing the hour change and service history data to help with the McCloud remedy exercise.We are now working with our software provider to validate this data and load it on to our database. There may be some further queries generated by this review. We intend to include McCloud underpin data for any cases where it applies in the 2025 Annual Benefit Statements for scheme members.

We would like to remind employers and payroll providers to be careful about sending us personal data securely. For those with emails ending in “.gov.uk” this is automatic. But if this doesn’t apply, confidential data should be sent using a secure mail system, such as Voltage Secure Mail.

Secure email is a way of protecting sensitive or confidential information when sending it in an email or as an attachment. All contents of the email including any attachments are encrypted until the person receiving the email unencrypts them using a ‘key’ or password that only they know.