How benefits are worked out
How your benefits are worked out will depend on when you joined the scheme.
Find more information below, and detailed examples on the LGPS website.
For service from 1 April 2014
Any pension built up in the scheme from 1 April 2014 will be on a Career Average Revalued Earnings (or CARE) basis. Visit How a CARE scheme works to find out more.
From 1 April 2014 you will build up a pension of 1/49th of your pensionable pay each scheme year and this will be added to your pension account.
The amount of pension in your Pension Account will be re-valued every year to keep it in line with the cost of living. This is currently measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI).
If you have more than one job in the LGPS, then you will have more than one pension account, one for each of your jobs.
For any period you are in the 50/50 section the pension you build up will be half your normal rate.
For service from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2014
Any pension built up before 1st April 2014 is worked out using your final pay and your membership.
If you joined the Scheme for the first time on or after 1 April 2008, your benefits are worked out as:
- final pay, multiplied by your membership, divided by 60
You can take part of your pension as a tax-free lump sum, but you will have to give up some of your pension for this.
For service before 1 April 2008
Any pension built up before 1 April 2014 is worked out using your final pay and your membership.
If you have membership before 1 April 2008, the benefits you earned before 1 April 2008 are worked out as:
- Pension = final pay multiplied by membership, divided 80
- Lump sum = your annual pension, multiplied by 3
You can choose to give up some of your pension for a bigger lump sum.
If you have membership both before and after 1 April 2008 the two amounts of pension and tax-free lump sum will then be added together to give you your total benefits.
Example of how my benefits are worked out if I work full time
- Bob earns £20,000 a year as at April 2014.
- Bob has built up 20 years membership before 1 April 2014 and will build up another 9 years membership in the scheme before he retires.
