Local government staff to work for longer

The
Government will ask people in local government to work longer, according to a
new Local Government Pensions Scheme (LGPS) consultation launched by ODPM
minister Phil Hope.

He
said the Government was committed to retaining final salary schemes for local
government employees, and said the proposals were aimed at developing a modern,
new-look LGPS to better serve the future needs of local government, its
workforce and taxpayers, on an affordable and sustainable basis.

Hope
said 
people were living longer, working patterns were changing,
and that there was a need to deal with the changing ratio of the economically
active population to those in retirement.

“Our
agenda seeks to meet the social and economic challenges of these demographic
changes by encouraging people to work longer, to help stabilise the
affordability of pension provision for taxpayers and to provide an attractive
and accessible pensions framework for all employees and employers,” he said.

The
consultation sets out a number of key issues for discussion, including:

–
phased transition between work and retirement,

–
the provision of pension
benefits to partners of Local Government employees,

–
improving access to the LGPS for employees in low pay bands and part time
workers,

–
overall increasing the
contributions paid by members to the scheme.

Michael Millar

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