Elected Member Pensions Regulations 2026 (LGPS)

Contractual enrolment and automatic enrolment (including automatic re-enrolment) do not apply to elected members. Eligible elected members who wish to join the LGPS must complete the opt-in form available on the Guides and sample documents page of the LGPS Regulations and Guidance website and send it to their employer’s payroll department.  

Once an application has been received, the membership begins on the first day of the next pay period. Membership cannot be backdated. 

The earliest date that an eligible elected member can apply to join is 11 May 2026. 

As an elected member can receive allowances from more than one eligible body, they may join the Scheme in respect of each of those bodies. Although, they must complete a separate written application for each body that pays them an allowance. 

For example, a councillor may hold roles across several eligible bodies, such as: 

• Huntingdonshire District Council 
• Cambridgeshire County Council 
• Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire and Rescue Authority 
• Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority

If each body pays an allowance directly, the councillor would have four separate scheme employers and four separate LGPS pension accounts. 

The elected member’s employee contribution rate is based on annual pensionable pay and is set and reviewed in the same way as for other LGPS members. However, pensionable pay is defined differently for elected members, as explained below.

As an employer, your contribution rate is the same for elected members as it is for non-elected LGPS members.

Elected members are office holders, not employees, so they are not paid a salary or wage in the usual employment sense. Instead, they receive allowances and, for certain elected mayors with executive powers, a salary set under their authority’s remuneration scheme.

For elected members, pensionable pay is the total amount paid under the authority’s approved remuneration scheme for:

• Basic allowances 
• Special responsibility allowances 
• Relevant allowances 
• Any salary paid (where applicable) 

A relevant allowance is an allowance paid under a combined authority establishment order or combined county authority establishment regulations except travel and subsistence allowances, which are not pensionable. 

The remuneration scheme must be established under one of the following:

• The Local Authorities (Members’ Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003 
• The Greater London Authority Act 1999 
• A Combined Authority establishment order 
• Combined County Authority establishment regulations 
• A remuneration arrangement for members of the Common Council of the City of London 

If an elected member takes part in a salary sacrifice shared cost AVC arrangement, their pensionable pay must be based on the amount they would have received if they had not entered into the salary sacrifice arrangement.

This means the sacrificed amount is added back when calculating pensionable pay for LGPS purposes. You do not need to specify the sacrificed amount separately as a pensionable emolument.

Elected members can opt in to the 50/50 section of the Scheme, which means they pay a lower employee contribution rate.

Members in the 50/50 section are automatically moved back to the main section from the start of the first pay period following:

• Your employer automatic re-enrolment date  

Or

• The member moving to no pay due to sickness or injury, where they remain on no pay at the start of that pay period.

Elected members can use APCs to buy extra pension and to buy back pension lost during an eligible period of absence.

As the employer, you:

• Cannot contribute to an elected member’s APC contract to buy additional pension, and
• Must contribute to an elected member’s APC to buy back lost pension where it meets the conditions for a qualifying additional pension arrangement (QAPA).

If the absence covered by the QAPA lasts for more than 36 months, you must contribute for the first 36 months, and you may contribute for any period beyond that.

Elected members can pay additional voluntary contributions (AVCs). However, they can only take out a shared cost AVC (SCAVC) where it is set up as a salary sacrifice arrangement.

Any employer contribution to a salary sacrifice SCAVC in a pay period is limited to the amount of pensionable pay sacrificed in that same pay period.

As elected members do not qualify for the National Minimum Wage, there is no requirement to ensure the salary sacrifice arrangement does not reduce their remuneration below that level.

For elected members, the aggregation rules are mostly the same as for non-elected members. The one exception is where the elected member would normally have the option to aggregate a previous deferred benefit, aggregation is only allowed if both records are elected membership.

Elected members have broadly the same retirement options as other members, but some options are modified because elected members are office holders, not employees.

• Redundancy and business efficiency: redundancy and business efficiency provisions do not apply to office holders, so elected members cannot be dismissed on these grounds. This means they do not have an entitlement to immediate payment of pension on redundancy or business efficiency at age 55 or over.
• Flexible retirement: elected members cannot reduce their hours or grade in the way an employee can under a contract of employment, so flexible retirement provisions do not apply.

Elected members can take their deferred benefits in the same way as other members.

As the employer, you cannot agree to waive actuarial reductio

In most cases, elected members can transfer benefits into and out of the LGPS in the same way as other members. However, there are two key differences in how transferred‑in service is treated for benefit purposes:

1. Final salary transfers in 

Where a transfer in would normally purchase final salary benefits, it instead purchases CARE benefits in the 2014 Scheme. In practice, all transfers‑in for elected members buy CARE benefits, regardless of the type of benefits being transferred. 

2. Remediable service   

If an elected member transfers in remediable service, it is not protected by the McCloud underpin. This applies whether or not the member has had a disqualifying break.