Admissions support for the public sector

The law governing the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is complex and evolving. As a result, both LGPS funds and employers alike increasingly need to seek specialist legal advice.

At Eversheds Sutherland, we have the largest, most experienced and wide-ranging pensions teams in the UK. Within this team, we offer a group of lawyers dedicated to providing LGPS advice. Eversheds Sutherland is also the leading law firm for local government law as a whole. This gives you a group of LGPS experts focused on your issues, who are also able to draw upon the broad knowledge and experience of our entire pensions team and the wider local government team: an all-encompassing and unique service.

As specialists, each member of the team is up to speed on developments in the LGPS at all times and is there to help you meet the ongoing challenges you face - understanding the issues and ensuring compliance. At Eversheds Sutherland, we provide clear effective advice and guidance.

In short, whatever aspect of the LGPS you are dealing with, we have a multi-faceted team equipped to advise and guide you on everything from day-to-day issues through to complex projects. We are committed to fully understanding the specific situation and needs of each client, and providing bespoke advice to ensure a solution that fits within your budget every time.

Our experience

The team has expertise in all areas of LGPS work including:

• outsourcing and related issues, including admission agreements
• training and development
• day-to-day pensions issues
• Funding and investment
• disputes and litigation
• commercial contracts and procurement
• governance

Proposal for admission agreement & bond documentation service

We can provide a bespoke admission agreement and bond documentation service and can assist where the in-house legal department does not have the capacity or expertise to support the Fund. Details of our services are set out below. We would be happy to discuss this in more detail with you, so that we can tailor our services to meet your needs.

Precedent documentation

At the outset, we would agree with the Fund a new precedent admission agreement document, based either on the Fund's existing document or on the latest Eversheds' precedent. This initial work ensures the documentation is as up to date as possible and contains the necessary provisions to comply with the LGPS regulations. We would also agree with the Fund a precedent bond agreement to accompany the admission agreement in appropriate cases.

Having well-drafted and robust precedent agreements can save a lot of time and unnecessary negotiation in the long run. The precedents would be updated by us in the event of any subsequent changes in the LGPS regulations.

Information requirements

We would also agree with the Fund a pro-forma information sheet with all the information we will require to adapt the precedent document for an individual admission body. This means that the Fund can then simply supply us with the necessary information on one sheet which enables us to complete the first draft of the admission agreement (and bond) in a quick and efficient matter. The draft documents would then be sent to the Fund for their approval and, once approved, issued to the parties for their comments.

Negotiation & formalities

We would negotiate any changes to the draft documents with the parties on the Fund's behalf (taking appropriate instructions) and finalise the documents. Once this is done, we would issue engrossed documents for execution by the parties. The documents would then be returned to us for checking. Providing the documents have been properly signed we would issue certified copies to the parties and return the original agreements to the Fund for safekeeping (or retain the originals on behalf of the Fund in our deeds storage facility).

Specialist admission agreements

In addition to this standard procedure, we also have plenty of experience dealing with more complex admission agreements, for example, agreements requiring Secretary of State approval, agreements covering retrospective periods of employment, agreements where the admission body has become insolvent before the agreement has been signed and agreements with NHS trusts under 'section 75' partnership agreements.