How are deferred benefits worked out?
How are my benefits worked out?
Membership after 1 April 2014
Your benefits are worked out as per the career average revalued earnings scheme (CARE). Under the CARE scheme, 1/49th of your pay is added to your pension account each year.
For membership from 1 April 2008 there is no automatic lump sum retirement grant. However, under current regulations when you take payment of your deferred benefits you can swap some of your annual pension for a retirement grant.
You will receive £12 of retirement grant (subject to certain HMRC limits) for every £1 annual pension you give up. More information on this will be given when you ask for payment of your benefits.
Membership between 1 April 2008 and 31 March 2014
Your benefits are worked out by looking at your final pay and membership. Your final pay will be that which your pension contributions were taken out of over the last twelve months. We can consider one of the previous three years, if they were higher.
Under this scheme, 1/60th of your final pay will be added to your pension account for each year of membership.
For membership from 1 April 2008 there's no automatic lump sum retirement grant. However, under current regulations, when you take payment of your deferred benefits you can swap some of your annual pension for a retirement grant.
You'll get £12 of retirement grant (subject to certain HMRC limits) for every £1 annual pension you give up. More information on this will be given to you when you ask for payment of your benefits.
Your benefits are worked out by looking at your final pay and membership. Your final pay will be that which your pension contributions were taken out of over the last twelve months. We can consider one of the previous three years, if they were higher.
Membership before 1 April 2008
Under this scheme, 1/80th of your final pay will be added to your pension account for each year of membership. You also automatically get a lump sum retirement grant of 3/80ths for membership until 31 March 2008.
You can increase this retirement grant by giving up some of your annual pension. You'll get £12 in your retirement grant (subject to certain HMRC limits) for every £1 of annual pension you give up.
Do my deferred benefits increase with the cost of living?
Every April, your deferred benefits are adjusted in line with inflation. The increase applied to your benefits is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as at the previous September.
Benefit projector
As a deferred member, you can see what pension benefits you've built up so far and also work out how much you could receive at retirement, by logging in to ‘My Pension Online’.