The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will go ahead with the proposals made in a recent consultation on access and fairness in the Local Government Pension Scheme, making changes to eligibility for survivor pensions and introducing gender pension gap reporting among others.

In the consultation response published on Monday, the ministry notes that most respondents agreed with its numerous proposals designed to increase fairness in the LGPS, despite respondents flagging “the significant potential burden that the proposals would place on administering authorities and software suppliers”, creating “the potential need to develop software and train staff”, as well as “the general cumulative burden of identifying potential survivors and beneficiaries, recalculating benefits, calculating owed benefits, and making payments”.

Respondents also called for guidance on numerous issues but overall, agreed with the proposals. The government has promised to work with bodies including the Scheme Advisory Board and the Government Actuary’s Department to produce guidance on calculations, interest, tax implications for backdated payments, missing data and more.

The survivor benefit changes would, among others, remove discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation after a female teacher won an employment tribunal in 2020, having successfully argued that the Teachers’ Pension Scheme treated widowers and male survivors in civil partnerships less favourably than female survivors of single-sex marriages or civil partnerships. 

The government’s changes would remove the requirement for a nomination form for cohabitees – already disapplied by most local authorities, while death grants will in future be paid to survivors of members who die over age 75.

Respondents also agreed with measures to address the gender pension gap, such as making authorised unpaid leave under 15 days pensionable – the original proposal was for under 31 days – as well as making it easier to buy back pension for leave over 30 days and changing the definition of child-related leave. 

They also supported gender pension gap reporting but said implementing this for the 2025 valuation would be difficult. 

The government will still require LGPS funds to report in the current valuation, but because of the time constraints, it has decided to limit this to gender pension gap reporting – not asking for gender pension saving gap reporting for now – and said funds can measure ‘pension accrued to date’ instead of ‘over a typical working life’. 

The government had proposed to include employers with 100 employees in the reporting, rather than 250 as in the private sector. Some respondents thought it should be the latter and pointed out that funds only have data relating to scheme members, not employees. In response, MHCLG said reporting at the employer level will not be mandatory for 2025, and actuarial valuation reports will only need to split gender pension gap reporting between employer category groups. 

Most of the softened requirements are only temporary, however. The consultation response notes: “Following the 2025 valuation, the intention is to work with the sector towards fuller gender pension gap reporting for the 2028 valuation. The intention for 2028 is to include a form of employer-level reporting, although the government recognises the issues with the 100 employee threshold. The intention for 2028 is also to include gender pension saving gap reporting, and to move towards a definition 'over a typical working life'."  

It adds that the government will work with GAD and the sector ahead of the 2028 valuation to define this reporting.