The Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations 1997

Abatement during new employment

Statements of policy concerning abatement of retirement pensions in new employment

109.—(1) Each administering authority must formulate and keep under review their policy concerning abatement (that is, the extent, if any, to which the amount of retirement pension payable to a member from any pension fund maintained by them under the Scheme should be reduced (or whether it should be extinguished) where the member has entered a new employment with a Scheme the employer, other than one in which he is eligible to belong to a teachers scheme).

(2) Before formulating that policy an administering authority must consult with the authorities who employ active members for whom they are the appropriate administering authority.

(3) Before the expiry of the period of three months beginning with the commencement date, each authority shall publish a statement as to the policy which is being applied by them where a member who is so entitled enters such a new employment on or after that date.

(4) Where, as a result of reviewing their policy concerning abatement, an administering authority determine to amend it, they must publish a statement of the amended policy before the expiry of the period of one month beginning with the date they determine to do so.

(5) In formulating their policy concerning abatement, an administering authority must have regard—

(a) to the level of potential financial gain at which they wish abatement to apply,

(b) to the administrative costs which are likely to be incurred as a result of abatement in the different circumstances in which it may occur, and

(c) to the extent to which a policy not to apply abatement could lead to a serious loss of confidence in the public service.

(6) In paragraph (5)(a) the reference to financial gain is a reference to the financial gain which it appears to the administering authority may be obtained by a member as a result of his entitlement both to a pension and to pay under the new employment.

Application of abatement policy in individual cases

110.—(1) Where a member who is entitled to the payment of a retirement pension proposes to enter a new employment with a Scheme employer, he must inform the employer about that entitlement.

(2) If such a member enters such a new employment he must immediately notify in writing the body from whom he has become entitled to receive the pension.

(3) Paragraphs (1) and (2) do not apply where the new employment is employment in which the person is eligible to belong to a teachers scheme.

(4) The authority which is the member's appropriate administering authority as respects the retirement pension to which he is entitled—

(a) must apply the policy published by them under regulation 109 to the member, and

(b) they may reduce the annual rate of that pension or, as the case may be, may cease to pay it, during the period while he holds the new employment, in accordance with that policy.

(5) But no reduction under paragraph (4) of the pension of a person who was a member immediately before the commencement date may exceed the reduction which would have applied under the 1995 regulations if those regulations had applied when the member entered his new employment.