LGPS

[LGPSquery]

Good Morning, I was unsure whether to post here or in employment issues. Apologies if this is the wrong place.

I left a local government job 7 years ago and stupidly thought the pension had transferred to the new LGPS as it was shown on my benefits statement as active. It was only when querying something else a couple of months ago that I realised it should have shown as deferred.

Turns out they had not closed me on their system or forwarded any pension details to the new scheme. I know the onus is on me, I should have checked.

Statement has arrived today, they have not paid any contributions when I was on unpaid maternity leave. Is this right?

I started the job when pregnant so did not receive occupational maternity pay. I did however receive continuous service, built up annual leave and I thought they had to pension contributions. Can anyone clarify please?

If so, is it too late to resolve this?

My understanding of the LGPS is that unpaid maternity leave is treated as unpaid leave of absence. This means the employer only has to pay contributions if you buy back your lost pension within 30 days of returning to work.

Thanks for your response @prh47bridge.

I have read the guidance - please see attached and I thought this meant they would pay their contributions until week 39?

I was not offered a chance to pay my missed contributions upon return to work. I am aware this is something I should have checked myself.

No, it means that unpaid leave does not count for pension purposes. They point out that this is normally from week 39 but that does not affect the meaning. Even if your unpaid leave started before week 39 it did not count for pension purposes. Sorry.

I would, however, be puzzled as to why your unpaid leave started before week 39 as SMP is paid for 39 weeks.

Thank you for clearing that up. Much appreciated.

I did get SMP via my previous employer (I moved from agency to permanent).

Hi @LGPSquery I think you should have been awarded some additional service IF I have understood your situation correctly.

I assume from what you have said that you left this previous period of service in 2013. I also understand that you received SMP from a previous employer, not from your LGPS employer, so as far as your LGPS employer is concerned your maternity leave was all unpaid - is that right?

Regulation 18(4) of the Local Government Pension Scheme (Administration) Regulations 2008 states that where an employee is on ordinary maternity leave, but is not entitled to receive any pay for that period, they should be treated as if they had paid contributions. In other words, you should get pension benefits awarded for that period as if you had been at work normally. Ordinary maternity leave is I believe the first 26 weeks of maternity leave. So you should therefore have been given pensionable service for that period. However, any additional maternity leave that was unpaid would only count for pension purposes if you paid the contributions due on your return to work.

It’s too late to do anything about paying back contributions for the additional maternity leave, but you should follow up on the ordinary maternity leave bit. You may need to provide some proof if you have it that you were on maternity leave as it’s possible your previous employer no longer holds information about you given the time that has passed.

You should raise this with the administering authority (the council administering the pension) in the first instance and they will then query with the employer.

It’s quite common for this to be overlooked as it’s quite rare for people not to be paid during ordinary maternity leave plus the payroll systems often couldn’t cope with paying contributions on notional pay, and the members often don’t realise it should be happening to query it.

Hope that’s helpful.

The guidance you have quoted is for the new LGPS scheme which won’t apply to you if you left before April 2014 but the principles are the same as the previous scheme (the 2008 scheme).

Hi @ChessieFL - thanks for posting. That is exactly the situation - I was an agency member of staff who was successful at interview whilst pregnant. The HR process took so long that I commenced maternity leave not long after going perm. The agency paid the SMP.

I have all of this evidenced by various emails from my line manager and HR.

My understanding was the same as yours, for the period of ordinary leave they should have paid notional contributions based on my assumed pensionable pay.

I was unsure if this was 26 or 39 weeks. I have gotten nowhere with the pension scheme. I will contact HR.

Do you know how long HR keep their files? They should be able to see my first payslip which will correspond to just before I gave birth. I appear to no longer have the pay advice.

Thank you.

I think legally they may only have to keep files for up to 6 years but they may keep them longer than that. It will really depend on your employer.