Like many other public service pension schemes, the scheme managers administering the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland need to provide remediable service information to members affected by the McCloud remedy.
By law, the LGPS administering authorities will need to include remediable service information in the Annual Benefit Statement (ABS) issued to members for the 2024 to 2025 scheme year unless they exercise their discretion to delay this for a further year.
We expect most administering authorities will be able to include the remediable service information in the 2024/25 ABSs to be issued by 31 August 2025. Therefore, there should be no need to exercise the discretion to delay the provision of this information for most members.
If administering authorities are considering exercising the discretion, the following conditions must be satisfied, as set out under Regulation 2(6) of The Local Government Pension Scheme (Information) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/880):
- The discretion can only be exercised if the administering authority considers it is reasonable in all the circumstances in the case of a particular member or class of members.
- The discretion must be exercised before 31 August 2025.
- Affected members must be notified that the discretion has been exercised in relation to them in their 2024/25 ABS.
We also expect the following steps to be taken by the administering authorities if they decide that the discretion will be exercised:
- The views of the relevant pension board have been sought and considered before making the determination.
- A written record of any decision to exercise the discretion is kept regarding a particular member or class of members, which includes a full description of the reasons for the decision.
- A clear and realistic action plan is implemented to ensure that complete and accurate remediable service information is included in the 2025/26 ABS issued to members affected by the application of the discretion.
- Before the 2024/25 ABS is issued, affected members should be told that it won’t include their remediable service information, and they should be given a clear explanation as to why that is the case.
A breach of law report should be submitted to us in the following circumstances:
- If the remediable service information is not included in the 2024/25 ABSs for all members and either:
- the discretion has not been exercised to delay the provision of this information for some members to the subsequent ABS
- the discretion has been exercised for some members but the legislative conditions applicable to its exercise have not been satisfied
- If there is reasonable cause to believe that the underlying reasons for exercising the discretion are due to failures in meeting the statutory requirements for adequate internal controls, including data quality, and/or good record-keeping.
- If there is a failure to include the remediable service information in the 2025/26 ABSs, particularly for members where the discretion to delay the provision of this information was exercised.
Where we find that our expectations have not been met, we may investigate further. This may include considering the use of our powers to ensure that good governance standards are being maintained.