FOI reference - FOI-156
Date - 5 September 2023
Request
I note that the TPR reports on employers who have complied with their re-enrolment duties and specifically the 'Total workers of the employers in 1 at the time they declared their compliance'.
Please can you therefore provide me with the total number of employees eligible for a local government pension scheme in each year as far back as records are held but no earlier than 2010.
If this is not available please would you be able to indicate to me how the data of the held by TPR on the Total workers of the employers in 1 at the time they declared their compliance is further categorised.
Response
You ask for the total number of employees eligible for a local government pension scheme (the LGPS). This is not data that TPR holds as eligibility for the LGPS will be determined by the rules of the scheme and/or the Government Departments that use this public service scheme.
The data we hold relates to the number of workers in employment on an employer’s staging date/duties start date who are eligible to be automatically enrolled. However, you should note that as a public service scheme most employers who can use the LGPS for their staff will use a process of 'contractual enrolment' ie becoming an active member of the pension scheme with consent immediately on start of employment or being eligible for the LGPS. In this respect such an employer using contractual enrolment would only have automatic enrolment duties for those workers who were either not eligible for the LGPS or who opted out/ceased active membership after being contractually enrolled.
In 2015, the Department for Work and Pensions introduced an exception to the automatic enrolment requirements which meant that an employer does not have to automatically enrol those workers who were a member of a qualifying scheme (the LGPS in this case) but who opted out who opted out/ceased active membership after being contractually enrolled.
In accordance with our duty to provide assistance, we therefore set out below the number of workers that employers have declared to us to have been either automatically enrolled or contractually enrolled into the LGPS. This information is subject to the notes also set out below.
| Declaration year | Savers enrolled |
|---|---|
| 2013 | 878,981 |
| 2014 | 258,480 |
| 2015 | 26,171 |
| 2016 | 10,584 |
| 2017 | 309,693 |
| 2018 | 84,488 |
| 2019 | 29,417 |
| 2020 | 17,032 |
| 2021 | 7,573 |
| 2022 | 3,970 |
| 2023 | 1,896 |
Notes:
- The LGPS has been identified through our Register of Pension schemes where 'LGPS' or 'Local Government Pension Scheme' exists within the current scheme name.
- The LGPS includes all occupational pension schemes that are not wound-up, gone-away, a parent segregated sectionalised scheme or not otherwise registrable.
- Matching to our Declaration of Compliance dataset is carried out on unique pension scheme identifier. Therefore, where an employer has not provided this, a match will not be made.
- The above volumes are based on an employer's initial declaration of compliance and so relates only to those workers in employment on an employer’s staging date/duties start date. Therefore, eligible employees may have subsequently been automatically enrolled after the staging date/duties start date in addition
- The data will also not include new joiners starting after the staging date/duties start date who may have subsequently been contractually enrolled or automatically enrolled into the LGPS after that date.
- Re-enrolment data is excluded.
- 'Savers Enrolled' includes Workers who were already active members of a qualifying scheme on the staging date or duties start date, as well as Eligible jobholders automatically enrolled into an automatic enrolment pension scheme.
- Data is to the end of August 2023.