23 September 2025
There has been significant interest from the UK Government in scale and consolidation of the UK pensions market. The consultations launched at Mansion House in November 2024 were focused on reform to deliver major consolidation of the Defined Contribution market and the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) to enable greater investment in productive assets to drive investment and support saver returns.
In the case of the LGPS, the Canadian pensions system, which is dominated by open public sector DB schemes, has drawn the most interest. There is clear Government support for the more consolidated Canadian approach, which the Government sees as an attractive model that they would like the LGPS to learn from. for several key reasons:
This paper seeks to examine the key similarities and differences between the LGPS and the Canadian Maple 8 to identify the potential challenges of reform focusing on:
- The way in which the Maple 8 invest and its appeal to the UK Government.
- How it will take time and require patience for the UK to invest in alternatives in the same way that Canadian pension schemes do.
- The contrast between the UK and Canadian economy.
- The similarities between UK and Canadian pension systems.
- The differences between the UK and Canadian pension systems.
Pensions UK hopes to facilitate further, more detailed conversations between the LGPS and the Government in the coming months particularly in light of recent Government action to accelerate the consolidation process.
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