On 12th November 2024, Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education made a statement which confirmed that the Department for Education (DfE) has put in assurance to the LGPS for Further Education (FE) bodies. The assurance is a DfE guarantee covering the following FE providers:

For clarity, the Board Secretariat has sought confirmation from the DfE that this guarantee does not cover Higher Education institutions and covers only the organisations that were reclassified as public sector by the Office for National Statistics in November 2022.

The policy paper accompanying the statement gives further details of how administering authorities should apply the guarantee to FE bodies and how it should be recognised in funding strategies. Specifically, the DfE expects that administering authorities should ‘treat FE bodies equitably with the academy and local authority sectors and be offered access to the lowest risk employer funding strategies when setting employer contribution rates, deficit recovery period and funding strategies’.

 The Board welcomes this announcement and the letter sent to Board Chair, Cllr Roger Phillips to confirm the position. It provides clarity for both administering authorities and FE employers in the scheme, particularly as the upcoming 2025 Actuarial Valuation exercise will be the optimal time for administering authorities to recognise this guarantee and take into consideration this assurance when reviewing funding strategies and employer contribution rates.

The Board also wishes to remind administering authorities that updated guidance for funds to follow when preparing the Funding Strategy Statement is expected by the end of the year. The updated guidance has recently been agreed by the Board’s Compliance and Reporting Committee, as well as CIPFA. Following Board approval at its next meeting on 25th November 2024, the guidance will be submitted to MHCLG for Ministerial approval and adoption as statutory guidance.