Analysis and expertise from the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) supports a consultation on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in England and Wales.

“Local Government Pension Scheme in England and Wales: Access and fairness” has been issued for consultation by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG). It will be available until 7 August 2025. The consultation is open to everyone but is relevant to LGPS members, employers with staff in the scheme and administering authorities.

Jim McMahon, Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution said the consultation, “fundamentally improves fairness in and access to the LGPS, addressing key issues that have been neglected for too long and treating them with the urgency they deserve.”

GAD’s analysis

Among the other LGPS topics respondents are being asked to consider are:

• survivor pensions and death grants
• the Gender Pension Gap
• people who opt out of the scheme
• forfeiture
• McCloud remedy

GAD supported the MHCLG pensions policy team with the consultation, by providing analysis to support various aspects of the report. Analysis included the potential cost impact of proposed changes to the scheme, and illustrations of how these could positively affect individual scheme members.

The report notes that 74% of the 6.7 million members of the LGPS are women and references previous analysis from GAD prepared for the LGPS Scheme Advisory Board (PDF, 1.24MB), which outlined the Gender Pensions Gap in the LGPS. The analysis indicated that, for several reasons, the average accrued pension for the millions of women working to provide local public services was more than 40% lower than for their male counterparts.

A proposal of the consultation is that GAD will work with MHCLG, and other scheme stakeholders, to help develop the detail of the Gender Pension Gap data to be disclosed by each of the LGPS funds.

Improving fairness

The LGPS is for people who have worked in local government. Much of the consultation focusses on equal access to the scheme and looks to address key issues that have been previously neglected. The consultation focus is on equality, fairness, integrity, efficiency and accuracy.