The Superannuation (Local Government and Overseas Employment) Interchange Rules 1969

PART IITRANSFER FROM LOCAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT TO OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT

Persons to whom part II applies

4.—(1) Subject to the provisions of these rules and to the conditions specified in rule 5 being satisfied, this part of these rules shall apply—

(a)to a person who on or after the commencement of these rules enters overseas employment within the prescribed period after leaving local government employment, and

(b)if the first fund authority consent, to a person who before the commencement of these rules entered overseas employment within the prescribed period, having left local government employment on or after 4th February 1948.

(2) This part of these rules shall not apply to any person who has become entitled to any benefit (other than a return of contributions) in respect of his local government employment.

Conditions for application of part II

5.—(1) The conditions referred to in rule 4(1) are that the person shall, before or within 6 months after entering overseas employment or, if he entered that employment before the commencement of these rules, within 6 months after their commencement—

(a)notify the first fund authority in writing that he desires these rules to apply to him;

(b)furnish that authority with particulars in writing of any national service in which he has been engaged since leaving local government employment; and

(c)pay to that authority an amount equal to any sum paid to him by way of return of contributions (other than voluntary contributions) on or after leaving local government employment.

(2) The first fund authority may extend the period for compliance with any condition specified in this rule.

Rights in respect of entry into overseas employment

6.—(1) Where a person ceases to hold overseas employment in such circumstances, including that of his age and the length of his service (taking into account the period of overseas employment), as had they obtained when he ceased to hold his local government employment would have entitled him to any benefit (other than an injury allowance) under the Act of 1937, he shall be entitled, as from the date on which he ceases to hold the overseas employment, to receive that benefit out of the superannuation fund of the first fund authority, calculated as if he had become entitled thereto at the date on which he ceased to hold his local government employment.

(2) Where a person ceases to hold overseas employment and has attained the age of 60 years, or any lesser age at which under the conditions of service applicable to him in the overseas employment he is required by reason of age to retire from that employment, but by reason of his not having attained some greater age and served for a correspondingly longer period he does not qualify for a benefit under the provisions of the preceding paragraph, he shall be entitled on attaining such greater age to receive the like benefits as he would have received under the preceding paragraph if he had attained that age at the date when he ceased to hold the overseas employment and had held that employment for a correspondingly longer period.

(3) Where a person dies in any of the following circumstances, that is to say—

(a)while in overseas employment;

(b)within 12 months after leaving overseas employment;

(c)after ceasing to be in overseas employment in the circumstances mentioned in paragraph (2) of this rule and before attaining such greater age as is therein mentioned; or

(d)after having become entitled to a benefit under paragraph (1) or (2) of this rule,

there shall be paid in respect of him out of the superannuation fund of the first fund authority the like benefits (if any), except any benefit for which the requisite voluntary contributions have not been maintained during the period of overseas employment, as would have been paid—

(i)in any of the three first-mentioned circumstances, if he had died immediately before ceasing to hold his local government employment and there had been reckonable for the purpose of determining whether any benefit might have become payable to or in respect of him under the Act of 1937, in addition to any service reckonable under the said Act, a period of service equal in length to the period of overseas employment and, if he was a person to whom paragraph (2) applied, the period between the date of his ceasing to hold that employment and the date of his death, and

(ii)in the last-mentioned circumstance, if he had become entitled to the said benefit under the said Act.

(4) Where a person ceases to hold overseas employment in the circumstances mentioned in paragraph (2) of this rule, the first fund authority shall, if within 6 months after ceasing to hold the overseas employment he so requests, pay to him in lieu of the benefits to which he would otherwise later become entitled under the said paragraph (2), those benefits reduced, according to his age at the date on which he ceased to be employed in the overseas employment, by the percentages shown in the appropriate columns of the Tables set out in schedule 1 so, however, that any such reduction shall be disregarded in the calculation of any widow's pension which may become payable in respect of the person under paragraph (3) of this rule.

(5) Where a person to whom this rule applies became engaged in national service after ceasing to hold his local government employment, that service shall for the purposes of calculating any benefit payable to or in respect of him under this rule be reckonable as contributing service if that service would have been so reckonable had the person returned to his local government employment at the date on which he entered overseas employment or, if it would not have been so reckonable as aforesaid by reason of the fact that the person had not complied with any condition as to the payment of contributions, if immediately after he entered the overseas employment or immediately after he notified the first fund authority, whichever is the later, he paid to the first fund authority the like sum as he would have been required to pay in order to comply with the said condition had he returned to his local government employment.

Restrictions on calculation of benefits

7.—(1) Where a benefit becomes payable to or in respect of a person by virtue of rule 6(1) or (3), any provision of any enactment applicable to him prescribing a minimum benefit or a method of calculating the benefit otherwise than by reference to the amount of his contributions or the service reckonable by him or the amount of the pension which, calculated by reference to that service was, or would in certain given circumstances have become, payable to him, shall be disregarded.

(2) Where a benefit becomes payable to or in respect of a person to whom rule 11 has become applicable and the amount of that benefit falls to be calculated under any provision of any enactment applicable to him prescribing a minimum benefit or a method of calculating the benefit otherwise than by reference to the amount of the person's contributions or the service reckonable by him or the amount of the pension which, calculated by reference to that service, was, or would in certain circumstances have become, payable to him, then, if the number of years of service reckonable by the person under the provisions of that enactment is less than any minimum number of years of qualifying service prescribed for the receipt of the said benefit, the amount of the said benefit, in so far as it is obtained by reference to the said provision, shall be the amount which bears the same proportion to the sum otherwise payable as the number of years of service so reckonable as aforesaid bears to the minimum number of years of qualifying service.

Exercise of discretionary powers on a person's entry into overseas employment

8.—(1) Where a person has entered overseas employment and these rules have become applicable in relation to him, the authority or body by whom he was employed may, within 6 months after the date on which they receive notification from him (or, if the employing authority are not the first fund authority, from the first fund authority) of his election that these rules shall apply to him, exercise in relation to him any discretion which, with a view to increasing the benefits payable to him, it would have been open to them to exercise at the time when he left their employment if he had then retired and had been entitled to a retirement pension.

(2) A decision made in the exercise of any discretion under this rule shall be subject to the limitations and restrictions (if any) and to the right of appeal (if any) to which it would have been subject if the discretion had been exercised on the person's retirement in the circumstances aforesaid.

(3) Where a discretion has been exercised under this rule, the service reckonable immediately before he left his local government employment by the person in whose favour the discretion has been exercised shall be deemed to have been correspondingly increased, and any transfer value that may become payable by virtue of rule 11 shall be calculated accordingly.

(4) Any increase in service, if attributable to a decision under this rule to increase the benefits payable to the person otherwise than by any notional increase or extension of the service reckonable for the purpose of calculating those benefits, or by treating any specified period of non-contributing service as contributing service or, under a local Act scheme, by similarly converting service of one category to service of another category, shall be ascertained by converting the service in respect of which the higher rate of benefit is payable into contributing service in the manner in which non-contributing service is converted into contributing service under section 2(4) of the Act of 1953.

(5) Where the amount of any benefit to which a person becomes entitled under rule 6, or the amount of any transfer value payable in pursuance of rule 11, is increased in consequence of the exercise by an authority or body of any power conferred upon them by this rule, that authority or body shall repay the amount of the increase to the superannuation fund out of which the benefit or transfer value is payable.

Additional contributory payments and added years

9.—(1) Where a person in respect of whom a benefit may become payable under rule 6 was, at the time when he ceased to be a contributory employee, in the course of making payments (other than those to which paragraph (2) of this rule applies) by way of—

(a)instalments in discharge of a fixed sum or

(b)contributions of a fraction or percentage of emoluments additional to the percentage payable in respect of current service,

as a condition of being entitled to reckon any period of service as a period of contributing service for the purposes of the Act of 1937 or as a condition of increasing the length at which the said service would be reckonable for the purpose of calculating a benefit under the said Act, he shall be entitled, if on electing under rule 5 that these rules shall apply to him he repays forthwith to the first fund authority a sum equal to any sums repaid to him by way of a return of such payments on or after ceasing to hold his local government employment, to pay the outstanding payments to that authority in the manner in which he would have been liable to pay them if, on the date when he entered overseas employment, he had entered employment in which he was a contributory employee, and—

(i)if he continues the payments, the service in respect of which they are made shall be reckonable for the purposes of the Act of 1937 in the manner in which it would have been reckonable if, immediately before he ceased to hold his local government employment, he had been under no further liability in respect of such payments;

(ii)if he does not continue the payments, then for the purposes of the Act of 1937 account shall be taken of the service in respect of which the payments were being made only to the extent (if any) to which account would have been taken of that service if he had not been in the course of making such payments as aforesaid in respect thereof at the time when he left his former employment.

(2) Subject to the provisions of rule 11, where a person in respect of whom a benefit may become payable under rule 6 was in the course of making payments in respect of added years at the time when he left his local government employment, those years shall not be reckonable for any purpose of these rules.

Allocation of part of superannuation benefit to spouse or dependant

10.  A person who becomes entitled under rule 6 to a benefit by way of annual amounts or who would become so entitled if he were to retire and who would have been entitled to surrender a part thereof had he become entitled to receive that benefit under the Act of 1953 on his retirement as an employee of the authority or body whose employment he left before entering overseas employment may surrender a part of that allowance in consideration of the grant of a pension to his spouse or any dependant on his death, subject to and in accordance with the provisions of schedule 2.