Official Statistics

Local government pension scheme funds for England and Wales: 2022 to 2023 revised

Updated 2 November 2023

Applies to England and Wales

This statistical release contains information on Local Government Pension Scheme Funds expenditure, income, and membership for the financial year 2022-23 in England and Wales. Data was submitted in relation to all 87 funds, and of these 56 funds’ data were submitted based on their authority’s provisional accounts. The totals include data from the Environment Agency for the first time, which has an active pension fund and a legacy closed fund. They are a member of the Local Government Pension Scheme but not a local government body. Totals are not compared to the previous year wherever data includes the Environment Agency or where there is missing data.

This release has been revised to include data on income and expenditure which was previously missing from one fund, and minor revisions from nine other funds covering market value, investment income, fund costs and fund membership.

1. In this release:

• Total Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) expenditure in England and Wales in 2022-23 was £15.3 billion.
• Total LGPS income in England and Wales in 2022-23 was £17.3 billion.
• Employers’ Contributions to the LGPS in 2022-23 in England and Wales amounted to £8.4 billion. Employees’ contributions to the scheme were £2.8 billion.
• The market value of LGPS funds at end of March 2023 was £359.2 billion.
• There were 93,580 retirements from the LGPS in 2022-23.

Release date: 25 October 2023 (Updated 2 November 2023 and 19 July 2024)
Date of next release: October 2024
Contact: 0303 444 2141 / sf3.statistics@levellingup.gov.uk (Responsible Statistician: Jo Coleman)
Media enquiries: 0303 444 1209 / NewsDesk@levellingup.gov.uk

2. Introduction

This release has been compiled by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and provides information on Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) funds in England and Wales that were collected on the SF3 (Pensions) 2022-23 form. Forms were received from 86 Administering Authorities in relation to 87 funds. This covers all members of the LGPS including, for the first time, the Environment Agency, who are counted twice because they have an active fund and a legacy closed fund. The Environment Agency is a member of the Local Government Pension Scheme but has previously been considered out of scope of the DLUHC data collection. However, in response to a user request, their funds have now been included and they have provided data to DLUHC on a voluntary basis.

This release was revised on the 2 November to include membership and retirements data not available for the original publication in relation to the Camden Pension Fund and West Midlands Pensions Fund. This revised publication has been published on 19 July 2024 to include data on income & expenditure and market value data that was previously not available from Camden, as well as revisions submitted by nine other authorities across a number of different fields.

Due to the inclusion of two new funds from the Environment Agency, the totals in this release are not compared to the previous year wherever data includes the Environment Agency.

Authorities were asked, where possible, to submit their data based on audited accounts. However, due to ongoing delays to local authority audits, 67 funds’ SF3 form data were originally submitted based on their authority’s provisional accounts. In this update of the release, figures are based on provisional figures for 56 funds. Authorities were asked to submit revised figures based on their audited figures, if significantly different, when available. Since the previous release, 9 authorities have submitted revisions.

This release shows data for England and Wales combined. Tables 1-6 of this release are available for England and Wales separately. The Environment Agency’s funds cover both England and Wales so have been excluded from England only and Wales only tables.

The SF3 (Pensions) form collects information on Local Government Pension Scheme funds’ income, expenditure, membership, retirements, and other activities. It also shows other associated information for the financial year 2022-23 and changes over previous years.

When looking at the figures in this release it should be remembered that throughout the year there are always staff transferring their pensions into, and out of, the LGPS because they either commence work for an employer who is a member of the LGPS and bring their accrued pension with them, or they move to another employer and take their pension pot with them.

In addition, there will be occasions where staff transfer between LGPS schemes and so there will also be transfers between funds within the LGPS.

3. Special factors affecting the data

Since 2018-19 there have been two large transfers between funds and one merger that have resulted in increases in the Transfer Values shown in both Table 1 and Table 2 below. These make direct comparisons with both previous and subsequent years inappropriate. Like-for-like comparisons have been made in previous statistical releases for the years affected by adjusting figures for Expenditure and Income to remove the effect of these factors. These have been marked in the tables. Changes to consider in the tables in this release are described below.

3.1 2018-19

There were no mergers in 2018-19. However Greater Manchester reported the remaining portion of a large 2017-18 transfer from West Yorkshire to Greater Manchester in their income figures. We are aware that the sum of the Greater Manchester transfer income figure in both years (£460.9 million) is greater than the West Yorkshire transfer expenditure figure in the previous year. We have been unable to reconcile this with the two authorities and so have used the figures as reported.

3.2 2019-20

On the 1 April 2019, the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority Pension Fund merged into the West Midlands Pension Fund, as per SI 2019 No. 1351. West Midlands Pension Fund reported that this accounted for £491.7 million of their transfer income figures.

3.3 2020-21

During 2020-21, the Pension Fund for Northumberland was merged into the Tyne & Wear Pension fund. The regulations (SI 2020 No. 502) came into force on the 3 June 2020 but backdated to 1 April 2020.

4. Expenditure: 2018-19 to 2022-23

Table 1 and Chart A provide figures of the expenditure of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in England and Wales from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

• Total LGPS expenditure in 2022-23 was £15.3 billion.
• The expenditure on benefits in 2022-23 was £12.3 billion. Of this, expenditure on pensions and annuities was £10.1 billion, and expenditure on lump sums paid on retirement was £1.7 billion.
• Disposal of Liabilities was £0.9 billion in 2022-23 and costs charged to the funds were £2.0 billion.
• For England, expenditure in 2022-23 was £14.2 billion. This excludes the Environment Agency which has members in both England and Wales, as do other figures for England or Wales only.
• For Wales, expenditure in 2022-23 was £906 million, an increase of £40 million or 4.6% on 2021-22.

Table 1: Local Government Pension Scheme expenditure, 2018-19 to 2022-23, England and Wales (all figures £ million)

Year	2018 to 2019	2019 to 2020	2020 to 2021	2021 to 2022	2022 to 2023 [Note 2]
Total expenditure on benefits	10,407	10,919	11,083	11,541	12,258 [r]
Of which pensions or annuities	8,436	8,883	9,225	9,484	10,116 [r]
Of which lump sums paid on retirement	1,573	1,616	1,440	1,595	1,654 [r]
Of which lump sums paid on death	239	239	269	275	288 [r]
Of which optional lump sums	150	172	142	179	187
Of which other benefits	9	9	7	7	13
Disposal of liabilities	928	952	768	853	928 [r]
Of which transfer values	926	950	767	851	927 [r]
Of which pensions act premiums	2	1	1	2	2
Costs charged to the funds [Note 1]	1,322	1,487	1,681	2,023	2,048 [r]
Of which investment management expenses	1,127	1,270	1,461	1,784	1,769 [r]
Of which administrative expenses	132	142	148	169	179 [r]
Of which governance and oversight costs	62	74	72	71	100
Other expenditure	36	37	23	25	36
Total expenditure	12,689	13,395	13,555	14,441	15,270 [r]

[r] Revision since original publication
[Note 1] The total Costs charged to the funds figure for 2020-21 does not equal the sum of the component parts due to inconsistencies in reporting by one local authority.
[Note 2] Data for 2022-23 include the Environment Agency funds for the first time. This means comparisons between data in 2022-23 and prior years are inappropriate.

5. Income: 2018-19 to 2022-23

Table 2 and Chart A provide figures of the income to the LGPS in England and Wales and the market value of the scheme from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

• Total LGPS income in England and Wales in 2022-23 was £17.3 billion.
• Employers’ Contributions to the LGPS in 2022-23 in England and Wales amounted to £8.4 billion. Employees’ contributions to the scheme were £2.8 billion.
• Investment income to the LGPS in 2022-23 in England and Wales amounted to £5.1 billion.
• The market value of LGPS funds at end of March 2023 was £359.2 billion.
• For England, income in 2022-23 was £16.0 billion.
• For Wales, income in 2022-23 was £1.2 billion, an increase of £117 million or 11.2% on 2021-22.

Table 2: Local Government Pension Scheme income and market value of funds, 2018-19 to 2022-23, England and Wales (all figures £ million)

Year	2018 to 2019	2019 to 2020	2020 to 2021	2021 to 2022	2022 to 2023 [Note 5]
Contributions: Employees	2,205	2,326	2,441	2,558	2,816 [r]
Contributions: Employers [Note 1]	7,131	7,680	10,312	7,792	8,444 [r]
Investment income (gross)	4,432	4,404	3,711	4,499	5,077 [r]
Of which dividends receivable	2,540	2,384	1,827	1,965	2,136 [r]
Of which interest receivable	240	303	194	162	304 [r]
Of which income from property	614	660	579	660	686 [r]
Of which other investment income	1,039	1,056	1,112	1,712	1,952 [r]
Transfer value [Note 2, Note 3]	1,127	1,507	816	1,019	951 [r]
Other income	192	60	43	51	40
Total income	15,087	15,977	17,324	15,919	17,328 [r]
Market value of funds at end of year [Note 4]	287,193	272,395	337,111	364,042	359,184 [r]

[r] Revision since original publication
[Note 1] Includes employers’ secondary contributions.
[Note 2] Greater Manchester reported the remaining portion of a large 2017-18 transfer from West Yorkshire to Greater Manchester in their 2018-19 income figures as a reported £313.6m transfer. This means total income in 2018-19 is not comparable with the 2019-20 data.
[Note 3] Transfer values for 2019-20 include a £491.7 million transfer from West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority Pension Fund for the merger of West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority Pension Fund and West Midlands Pension Fund. Please note that this £491.7m transfer appears in the income data but not the expenditure data due to the timing of the merger. This means total income in 2019-20 is not comparable with the 2018-19 and 2020-21 data.
[Note 4] The total market value of funds at the end of 2022-23 has been revised following revisions submitted by 17 authorities.
[Note 5] Data for 2022-23 include the Environment Agency funds for the first time. This means comparisons between data in 2022-23 and prior years are inappropriate.

5.1 Chart A: Local Government Pension Scheme expenditure and income in 2022-23: England and Wales

Chart A shows the relative size of different components of the income and expenditure totals in 2022-23. It shows that the majority (66%) of expenditure was on pensions or annuities, just under half of income (49%) was from employer contributions, and investment income was a greater proportion of income than employee contributions.

6. Income and Expenditure

Table 3 and Chart B provides a comparison of total LGPS expenditure and income in England and Wales from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

• In 2022-23, total expenditure was 88.1% of LGPS income.

Table 3: Local Government Pension Scheme total expenditure and income, 2018-19 to 2022-23, England and Wales (all figures £ million)

Year	2018 to 2019	2019 to 2020	2020 to 2021	2021 to 2022	2022 to 2023 [Note 1]
Total expenditure (from Table 1)	12,689	13,395	13,555	14,441	15,270 [r]
Total income (from Table 2)	15,087	15,977	17,324	15,919	17,328 [r]
Expenditure as a % of income	84%	84%	78%	91%	88%

[r] Revision since original publication
[Note 1] Data for 2022-23 include the Environment Agency funds for the first time. This means comparisons between data in 2022-23 and prior years are inappropriate.

6.1 Chart B: Local Government Pension Scheme total expenditure and income 2012-13 to 2022-23, England and Wales

Chart B shows the change in income and expenditure over time since 2012-13. There is a regular peak in income every three years where employers make payments for the next three years.

7. Membership and Employers

7.1 Membership

Tables 4 and Chart C provide figures of the membership of the LGPS in England and Wales.

• At the end of March 2023, the total membership of the LGPS was 6.6 million people. Of this number, 2.1 million are employees who still contribute to the scheme, 2.0 million are pensioners and 2.4 million are former employees who are entitled to a pension at some time in the future.

Table 4: Number of Local Government Pension Scheme members at the end of each year , 2018-19 to 2022-23, England and Wales (all figures in thousands of members)

Year	2018 to 2019	2019 to 2020	2020 to 2021	2021 to 2022	2022 to 2023 [Note 2] [r]
Employees	1,980	2,000	1,998	2,025	2,103
Pensioners	1,733	1,798	1,849	1,931	2,022
Former employees entitled to deferred benefits	2,219	2,246	2,265	2,343	2,423
Flexible retirees [Note 1]	13	14	16	18	21
Total membership of LGPS	5,946	6,059	6,129	6,318	6,570

[r] Revision since original publication, made in November 2023 update to include data from Camden and West Midland Pension Fund. [Note 1] Flexible retirement defined in Regulation 30(6) to the 2013 LGPS Regulations.
[Note 2] Data for 2022-23 include the Environment Agency. This means comparisons between data in 2022-23 and prior years are inappropriate.

7.2 Chart C: Membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme 2012-13 to 2022-23, England and Wales

Chart C shows the change in composition of the membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme since 2012-13. In November 2023, this chart has been revised to include data that were previously missing from Camden and West Midlands Pension Fund. Comparisons between 2021-22 and 2022-23 are inappropriate because the Environment Agency has been added to the data in 2022-23.

Since 2015-16 the number of employees has been stable, but there has been a steady increase in numbers of flexible retirees, former employees entitled to deferred benefits and pensioners between 2012-13 and 2021-22.

7.3 Employers

Data were collected on the type of employer involved in the LGPS. Employers were categorised into one of four groups:

• Local authorities and connected bodies – e.g. a county council, district council
• Centrally funded public sector bodies – e.g. an academy, further education corporation, sixth form college or higher education corporation
• Other public sector bodies – e.g. a National Park Authority. This includes the Environment Agency.
• Private sector, voluntary sector and other bodies – e.g. a passenger transport executive, an urban development corporation, (and private/voluntary sector organisations).

Table 5 shows the number of employers (which includes admitted bodies) in England and Wales in each of the four groups as reported by pension authorities. It also shows the number of employees, pensioners etc. that are part of the LGPS, by the type of employer.

• 72.0% (4.7 million) of all the members of the LGPS are covered by local authorities and other connected bodies, though local authorities and connected bodies represent only 16.8% of employers (with 3,422 employers).
• Private sector, voluntary sector, and other bodies account for approximately a third (33.3%) of all employers (with 6,781 employers) but are responsible for only 5.2% (344,000) of all LGPS members.

Table 5: Number of Local Government Pension Scheme members at the end of 2023 by type of employer, England and Wales (employer figures unrounded, employee figures in thousands of members) [Note 1] [r]

Employer group	Local authorities and connected bodies	Centrally funded public sector bodies	Other public sector bodies [Note 2]	Private sector, voluntary sector and other bodies	Total
Total membership of local government pension scheme (Thousands)	4,731	1,265	229	344	6,570
Of which are employees	1,341	590	85	88	2,103
Of which are pensioners	1,609	204	79	131	2,022
Of which are former employees entitled to deferred benefits	1,765	469	66	123	2,423
Of which are flexible retirees [Note 3]	17	2	0	2	21
Total Number of Employers (whole figures)	3,422	9,048	1,102	6,781	20,353

[r] Revision since original publication. Figures revised in November 2023 update to include data from Camden and West Midland Pension Fund and a minor revision to the number of employers by one authority in July 2024.
[Note 1] Data for Table 5 include the Environment Agency. This means comparisons between data in Table 5 and Table 5 in prior years are inappropriate.
[Note 2] The Environment Agency members are counted only within ‘Other public sector bodies’.
[Note 3] Flexible retirement defined in Regulation 30(6) to the 2013 LGPS Regulations.

8. Retirements from the Local Government Pension Scheme

Table 6 and Chart D provide figures of the type of retirement from the LGPS in England and Wales from 2018-19 to 2022-23. The Environment Agency were unable to provide data on retirements, so are not included in these figures.

• There were 93,580 retirements from the LGPS in 2022-23, a decrease of 1,137 or 1.2% compared with 2021-22.
• The number of employees having their deferred benefits paid early was 53,237, a decrease of 1.7% on 2021-22, and account for over half (56.9%) of the total employees retiring.
• The number of people leaving the LGPS in 2022-23 due to redundancy continues to fall, a decrease of 2,370 or 43.7% to 3,053.
• The number of people leaving the LGPS in 2022-23 due to normal retirement was 33,723, an increase of 1,555 or 4.8% on 2021-22.

Table 6: Type of retirements from the Local Government Pension Scheme, 2018-19 to 2022-23, England and Wales

Year	2018 to 2019	2019 to 2020	2020 to 2021	2021 to 2022	2022 to 2023 [Note 1] [r]
Redundancy	8,804	7,825	5,989	5,423	3,053
Tier 1, 2 & 3 ill health retirement awards under LGPS	2,875	3,046	2,739	2,987	3,567
Early payment of deferred benefits	45,469	52,112	49,348	54,139	53,237
Normal retirements	26,360	26,023	24,860	32,168	33,723
Total retirements	83,508	89,006	82,936	94,717	93,580

[r] Revision since original publication, made in November 2023 update to include data from Camden and West Midland Pension Fund.
[Note 1] The Environment Agency is not included in the totals in this table in 2022-23 because the retirement data was not available when they provided data on a voluntary basis, and so comparisons between 2021-22 and 2022-23 are appropriate for this table.

8.1 Chart D: Type of retirement from the Local Government Pension Scheme, 2012-13 to 2022-23, England and Wales

Chart D shows the change over time in different types of retirements since 2012-13 until 2022-23.

The number of normal retirements was stable since 2012-13 until an increase in 2021-22 which is sustained in 2022-23. The number of early payments of deferred benefits had steadily increased from 2012-12 to 2019-20 before decreasing and increasing alternately between years, with a much smaller decrease between 2021-22 and 2022-23. The number of redundancies steadily decreased from 2016-17 to 2022-23, whilst the number of ill health retirements has been broadly stable from 2012-12 to 2021-22, with an increase in 2022-23.

9. Accompanying Tables and Open Data

9.1 Symbols used

[x] = not available
0 = zero or negligible (e.g. less than 500,000 when data are rounded to millions)
[r] = Revised since the previous update of this data

9.2 Rounding

Where figures have been rounded, there may be a slight discrepancy between the total and the sum of constituent parts.

9.3 Tables

Accompanying tables are available to download alongside this release. These include Tables 1 to 6 for England and Wales separately, and data for individual pension administering authorities.

9.4 Open data

These statistics are available in fully open and linkable data formats.

9.5 Technical Notes

Please see the accompanying technical notes document for further details.

Information about statistics at DLUHC is available via the Department’s website.

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