90% vote to back New LGPS for England & Wales

UNISON members across England and Wales have voted 90.2% in favour of accepting the proposed changes to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).

UNISON is the largest public service union and its members in the Local Government Pension Scheme span local government, police and probation, schools, colleges, universities, water, transport and environmental services, private companies and the voluntary sector.

The union, led the negotiations, which resulted in proposals to maintain the current contribution levels for 90% of LGPS members, introduce a 50/50 ‘low cost’ scheme for the low paid, and move from a final salary to a career average scheme.

Welcoming the ballot result, UNISON Head of Local Government Heather Wakefield said:

‘These were tough negotiations, but with a focus on the majority of members who earn less than £21,000 a year, we have ensured that current LGPS members can afford to remain in the scheme and those who could not afford to do so to date can now join via the 50/50 option.

“This is vital for many of our members who have suffered a decline in earnings as a result of the Coalition’s pay freeze policies. Contributions are now on a fairer ‘progressive’ basis. We will continue to campaign with all of the union, through the TUC, against the proposals to increase the state retirement age.

“UNISON will now move into the next stage of discussions on improving the governance of the new scheme which is due to come into effect in 2014.”

84% of Unite members also backed the changes in its ballot result announced today and GMB delivered a 95% result last week.