{"id":197497,"date":"2025-06-19T15:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T15:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/197497\/"},"modified":"2025-06-19T15:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T15:51:11","slug":"calls-for-86-billion-pension-surplus-to-plug-8bn-council-funding-gap-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/197497\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for \u00a386 billion pension surplus to plug \u00a38bn council funding gap | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), which helps provide the pensions of nearly 7 million local government and public service employees<\/a>, currently has an extra \u00a387bn, which is being eyed by the Labour Government as part of its plans to encourage more pension schemes to invest in the UK economy.<\/p>\n

But one expert has called for some of the money to be used to help plug a \u00a38 billion funding gap in local services, including bin collections, road repairs, and street lighting.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Daily Express reported how local councils are being pushed towards the \u201cfinancial brink\u201d<\/a> as they face a multibillion-pound funding gap, a bombshell report warns. Almost three in four Town Halls in England say they are struggling to balance the books with a funding gap of more than \u00a38 billion by 2028\/29.<\/p>\n

At the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association’s annual local government conference in Bedford this week, Toby Nangle, a commentator at the Financial Times, said one council had already taken pension contribution breaks to help fund public services.<\/p>\n

He cited the example of Kensington and Chelsea council’s pension fund choosing to reduce its contributions to 0% to help fund services, including compensation for the Grenfell Tower disaster.<\/p>\n

Mr Nangle said: “I’d expect many more to be in a position to do same sort of thing, especially in the context of crunch local government spending. You know, the way in which a resident, if you all are of councils, you see Council services under pressure.<\/p>\n

“And if there’s if there’s a possibility without it blowing pension scheme, you reduce the amount that goes into it and everyone’s happy. That sounds like quite a compelling argument.”<\/p>\n

The LGPS, which has total assets worth \u00a3415bn, provides guaranteed pension pots to workers, although many of them will be low-paid; the surplus amount is what is left over after all the pensions of both current employees and retired employees are paid.<\/p>\n

However, some commentators have pointed out that the surplus could be used to provide the pension fund with reserves or used to help address the generational pension gap.<\/p>\n

Rachel Wood, head of the West Sussex pension, told the PLSA conference that pension funds need to adopt a measured approach. She said a pension fund’s role is not to hold on to an excess, nor to draw on it too quickly<\/p>\n

\u201cSurplus for a long-term employer is a measure and a day-to-day tool. Surplus for shorter-term employers can be everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not for us, but it’s there to illustrate benefits that have been accrued, future benefits that will be accrued, and then those new members coming into the scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), which helps provide the pensions of nearly 7 million local government and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,18238,31724,78735,80110,2074,80109,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-197497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-kensington-and-chelsea-council","11":"tag-local-elections-2025","12":"tag-local-government-pension-scheme","13":"tag-local-services-funding","14":"tag-pension","15":"tag-pension-surplus","16":"tag-personal-finance","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114710831802926586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}