Councillors and mayors in England can join the LGPS from 11 May 2026. Councillors and mayors are referred to as elected members. The rules for councillors and mayors are different.
Who can join
You are eligible to join the LGPS as an elected member if you are under age 75 and meet one of the criteria:
- Mayors
- mayors and deputy mayors of combined authorities
- mayor and deputy mayors of combined county authorities
- the Mayor of London
- mayors of single authorities – although access is in their role as a councillor
- Councillors
- members of county and district councils, including unitary councils
- members of London boroughs councils
- members of the Common Council of the City of London
- members of the Council of the Isles of Scilly
- members of the London Assembly.
As an elected member you do not need the consent of your authority to join the LGPS. The exceptions to this are members elected to the London Assembly, the Common Court of the City of London and the Mayor of London – these bodies are required to make a determination for members to be eligible.
Town and Parish councillors are not eligible for membership.
How to join
If you wish to join the LGPS you must opt in. Complete the Councillor (elected member) opt in form (opens in a new window) (DOCX, 45.5 KB) Download the form, complete it, and give it your authority.
If you receive a pensionable allowance or salary from more than one authority and you want to build up pension benefits in each role, you must complete a separate joining form for each authority.
When your Scheme employer receives your written election to join, they will bring you into the Scheme from the first day of the next payment period. Membership cannot be backdated.
Your Scheme employer will notify us. We will create a pension account for you. You will receive an official notification of your membership. You should check your payslip to make sure that pension contributions are being deducted.
Contribution rates
You pay contributions on your pensionable pay at your contribution rate. Your contribution rate depends on how much you are paid. It’s currently between 5.5% and 12.5% of your pensionable pay. The rate you pay depends on which pay band you fall into. Find out about contribution pay bands and rates
When you join, and every April afterwards, your Scheme employer will decide your contribution rate. If your pay changes throughout the year, your Scheme employer may decide to review your contribution rate.
If you receive more than one pensionable allowance and these are paid by different authorities, your contribution rate will be assessed separately by each authority in relation to the allowances they pay.
If you elect for the 50/50 section of the Scheme, you pay half the contribution rate. Find out about the 50/50 section
The contribution rates and pay bands are reviewed regularly and may change in the future. If you are a member of the Scheme, you should check your payslip to make sure that pension contributions are being taken.
Use the contributions calculator to see what contributions you pay based on your pensionable pay. You can use the calculator to see how your contributions are affected by your pay, tax relief, and what section of the Scheme you are in.
Tax relief
If you earn enough to pay tax, your LGPS contributions will attract tax relief when they are deducted from your pay.
If you do not earn enough to pay tax, you still benefit from tax relief, but not through your pay. For the 2024/25 year onwards, the government will make top-up payments to Scheme members in this group. We expect HMRC to make the first of these payments in 2026.
There are restrictions on the amount of tax relief available on pension contributions. If the value of your pension savings increases in a year by more than the standard annual allowance, you may have to pay a tax charge. Most people will not be affected by the annual allowance. Find out about tax controls and pensions
Pensionable pay for elected members
Pensionable pay is the pay used to work out your pension. In most cases, it is also the pay from which your contributions are deducted. The meaning of pensionable pay for elected members is different than for employees.
Pensionable pay for councillors and mayors is the total of the following amounts paid under the authority’s approved remuneration scheme:
- Basic allowances
- Special responsibility allowances
- Relevant allowances
- Any relevant salary paid.
A relevant allowance is an allowance paid under a combined authority or combined county authority establishment order, except travel and subsistence allowances. Travel and subsistence allowances are not pensionable.
The remuneration scheme must be established under one of the following:
- the Local Authorities (Member’s 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.
In practice, this generally means that where an eligible elected member receives a salary or any of the allowances listed above from:
- the authority to which they are elected
- a combined authority
- a combined county authority
- a fire and rescue authority
that allowance or salary will be pensionable if they elect to join the Scheme.
Scheme employers for elected members
Your Scheme employer is the body deemed to be responsible for your LGPS membership. As a councillor or mayor, you do not have an employer and therefore a body is nominated to perform this role for you.
Your Scheme employer is generally the body that pays you an allowance or salary and can therefore deduct contributions directly.
Some councillors are paid pensionable allowances from more than one Scheme employer because they hold multiple roles. If this applies to you, you are eligible to join the LGPS in each role. This means you can opt into the Scheme separately for each position and have multiple pension accounts. For example, a councillor who serves on:
- Maidstone Borough Council
- Kent County Council, and
- Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority
will receive allowances paid directly from 3 separate bodies. If they elect to join the LGPS in all their roles, they will have 3 Scheme employers and 3 separate pension accounts.
Main differences in how LGPS rules apply to elected members
- Councillors and mayors are not employees, so you do not have an employer in the usual sense. Instead, the authority that pays your pensionable allowance or salary is treated as the LGPS Scheme employer and carries out the usual employer responsibilities, such as meeting part of the cost of benefits.
- Elected members are not contractually or automatically enrolled into the LGPS. You must actively opt in if you want to build up pension benefits. If you receive an allowance or salary from more than one authority and want pension benefits from each role, you must complete a separate joining form for each authority.
- The rules around what counts as ‘pensionable pay’ are different for elected members.
- You cannot choose to combine elected membership of the Scheme with membership as a non-elected member.
- You cannot flexibly retire or take early retirement due to redundancy or efficiency.
- If you transfer final salary benefits from another public service pension scheme into the LGPS, these will be converted into career average (CARE) benefits rather than final salary benefits.
- Elected members are not protected by the underpin protection.
- Your Scheme employer cannot award you extra pension or pay into a shared cost Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) for you, unless the AVC is set up as a salary sacrifice shared cost AVC.
- Scheme employers cannot share the cost of Additional Pension Contributions (APCs) for councillors unless the arrangement is a Qualifying Additional Pension Arrangement (QAPA).