Joining and opting out of the pension scheme

For employments starting on and after 1 April 2014

New starters in the scheme

Who can join? 

  • new employees, who are eligible for membership of the Scheme and who have a contract of employment of 3 or more months;
  • new employees with a contract of less than 3 months may choose to join the LGPS. They must complete and send to their employer the Opt-In Form for action at the next available pay period. Election to join (pdf format, 180KB)

What does the employer need to do?

On or before appointment – or after receiving an election to join - the employer should:

  1. introduce the LGPS to the member,
  2. tell the member their contribution rate,
  3. tell the member when and under what circumstances that rate might change
  4. tell the member who to contact in the event of a dispute about that rate,
  5. supply a copy of that employer's pension policy statement.
  6. Advise Oxfordshire Pension Fund (OPF) about the new member using i-Connect
  7. tell members where they can find out more information about the scheme – the following resources may be useful:

There are template letters for employers to adapt and use to cover most of those points.

Opting Out

The LGPS is not a compulsory scheme. A member may choose to leave at any time

The opt out process:

An 'opt-out' election form can not be completed before the start of employment.

Where the member has more than one employment, the opt-out election must specify to which employment it will apply.  

The member will usually ask you for an opt-out form

The 'opt-out' form (pdf format, 490KB) 

When you receive the completed ‘opt-out’ form, 

  • Check it is correctly signed and dated,
  • take the appropriate payroll action to opt the member out    
  • fill in the “HR or Payroll use only” section on the form
  • send the original form to Pension Services
  • No further employee or employer contributions will be due    

What happens then?

If the member has been in LGPS for less than 3 months, the employer should refund member contributions through the payroll. Employer contributions return to the employer.

If the member has been in LGPS for at least three months, after stopping contributions inform Pension Services of the leaver on the next i-Connect submission.

Notes

The LGPS ceased to be contracted out of the State Second Pension (S2P) from April 2016.

These reference numbers applied for this fund until the ending of contracting out:

  • The employer contracted-out number (ECON) for Oxfordshire County Council is: E3900002R
  • The scheme contracted-out number (SCON) for Oxfordshire County Council is: S2700165T