Broadly comparable

3.6  Any pension scheme put forward by the Contractor which is designed to come within this category should be assessed by an actuary in accordance with the Government's Actuary's Statement of Practice. The Direction unfortunately does not confirm that such assessment be done by reference to this Statement of Practice, but any Local Authority should expect to have the Contractor's pension scheme assessed in this way. There are 2 methods of assessment:-

3.6.1  'Individual Assessment' - the pension scheme offered is compared with LGPS specifically in respect of the transferring staff and once it is assessed to be broadly comparable, the new scheme is certified as such but only for that specific transfer;

3.6.2  'Passport' - the scheme offered by the Contractor is compared with LGPS as it applies to all categories of membership and once it is certified as broadly comparable it will be deemed so for any transfer of members from the LGPS. It is important, however, that Authorities check that the Passport Certificate is valid and has not expired. It should be noted that all GAD Passport Certificates issued before 26 April 2007 are no longer valid in England and Wales and these should not be presented by Contractors to, nor accepted by, contracting authorities in England or Wales.

3.7  Authorities are advised to ensure bidders who intend to offer a broadly comparable scheme inform Authorities early in the procurement process of the method they will use as well as checking whether any such scheme will provide redundancy related pension benefits equivalent to those under LGPS, since it is the understanding of GAD and the ECJ that such benefits transfer under TUPE.