I'm paying in

The LGPS is one of the largest pension schemes in the UK. It's a defined benefit 'career average' pension scheme which means your pension is based on your salary and how long you pay in. 

What’s a pension account?

You have a pension account for each job that has pension deductions taken from it. If you have more than one job, you’ll have a separate pension account for each job.

Your pension account shows the pension you’ve built up in that job.

In a career average scheme like this one, your pension is worked out based on your pensionable pay in each 'scheme year', which runs from April to April. At the end of the scheme year, the pension you've earned for that year is added to the total pension you've already built up in your pension account.

To make sure it keeps its value, the total pension in your pension account is then adjusted, or 'revalued', in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI).

To learn more about how pension accounts work, try this interactive Pension Account Modeller (external link).

Your pension scheme at a glance

• A build-up rate of 1/49 of your pay a year
• Pensions revalued yearly by treasury order
• A build-up rate for survivor benefits of 1/160
• Pensions in payment are protected against inflation
• Your actual pay, including overtime and additional hours if you’re part time, counts towards your pension
• You can temporarily pay 50% contributions for 50% pension
• Your normal pension age is the same as your state pension age
• You can choose to retire from age 55
• You can trade pension for lump sum when you retire and get £12 lump sum for every £1 pension you trade
• We pay a death grant of at least three times your pensionable pay if you die while you're paying into the scheme
• Ill health pensions are enhanced based on a tier system:
  • Tier 1 - enhancement to normal pension age, or
  • Tier 2 - 25% enhancement to normal pension age, or
  • Tier 3 - temporary payment of pension for up to three years
• You will be entitled to a pension after paying in for two years
• You can pay into the scheme up to age 75

As always, conditions apply. 

As an active member of the scheme you pay between 5.5% and 12.5% of your pay in contributions. 

How much you pay depends on your actual pensionable pay. If you have more than one job, your rate will be decided separately for each job. If you’re paid non-contractual overtime you’ll pay contributions on this too. 

Your employer decides your rate

Each April, your employer will decide your contribution rate by matching your actual pensionable pay to the appropriate band in the table above. The bands increase every year by CPI.

If your pay changes during the year, your employer may decide to review your contribution rate. If this results in a change to your rate, they will tell you. You have the right to appeal against the contribution rate they set.

You get tax relief on your pension contributions, which means your contributions are deducted from your pay before you pay tax. This is a valuable benefit for LGPS members.

Contribution calculator

You can also use an interactive calculator to find out how much you will pay in contributions.

You will need to input 

• your pay for the next scheme year (1 April to 31 March)
• how often you are paid (either weekly or monthly), and
• the section of the scheme you are in (you'll be in the main section unless you choose to pay less in the 50/50 section).

Go to the calculator (external link)

If you've recently joined the pension scheme there are three things you should do sooner rather than later.

1. Register for an online pension account - you can do this at the top of the page.
2. Complete a death grant nomination (expression of wish) form and consider filling in a co-habiting partner form if it applies to you.
3. Start the process to transfer your other pensions into your new fund if you want to do this. There are strict time limits so don't delay. You can read more about transfers in the LGPS Knowledge Hub

Keeping your contact details and personal information up-to-date is very important. 

Your home address
As long as you tell your employer when you move house, they'll tell us so we can update our records.

Your email and phone number
You can update these online by logging in to your account. If you don't use our online services you can call, write or email us instead.

Death grant nominations
Please review and keep your death grant expression of wish (nomination details) up-to-date. Don't forget your cohabiting partner details if that applies to you.

Read more about these here. 

With AVCs you pay extra contributions into your fund's AVC plan to save for a bigger pension or lump sum when you claim your pension.

The benefits

• AVCs - additional voluntary contributions - don't buy a set amount of pension but build up a fund value, or 'pot', that you buy pension benefits with at retirement.
• You can take your whole AVC pot as a lump sum as long as:
  • you take it at the same time as your main LGPS benefits, and
  • the total lump sum (AVC pot + LGPS lump sum added together) is no more than 25% of the total value of your overall benefits.
• When you retire you can choose what your benefits buy, such as a spouse’s pension or whether the pension increases in line with inflation.

You can read more about AVCs in the knowledge hub.

With APCs you buy extra pension in the LGPS by paying extra contributions each month or buying them with a lump sum.

Note: you can’t use APCs to buy extra pension if you’re a member of the 50/50 section of the scheme.

The benefits

• APCs buy you extra pension in the scheme that's paid in the same way as your main pension. You can buy up to £8,344 of extra pension (2024/25), less any extra pension you've already bought, or are buying.
• At retirement, you might be able to give up some of the extra pension for a bigger lump sum (limits apply to this).
• At the end of each scheme year we'll add the extra pension you have bought to your benefits and they go up each year along with your other benefits.

Find out more in the LGPS Knowledge Hub.

Pay half your standard pension contributions for a while and stay in the pension scheme, building up half the standard pension for that period.

If you decide you need to spend your money on other things for a while, you can reduce your pension contributions and stay in the pension scheme with full death benefits. So while you'd pay just half the contributions in the '50/50 section' of the pension scheme, you’re still building up some pension, and importantly you still get the full protection of the scheme’s generous death benefits. So you can be confident that your husband or wife, civil or cohabiting partner and eligible children are fully protected even though you are paying less in.

Is there a downside?

The obvious downside to 50/50 is that if you pay half in, you only get half out. Even so, it might be right for you – for a while. But you should bear in mind that it will soon start to make a hole in your future pension. That’s why, when you go 50/50, your employer has to put you back into the main scheme on full contributions at least every three years. There’s nothing to stop you going 50/50 again straightaway when this happens, but before you do, think about what you want from your pension and your retirement. Checking your statement every year will help you do this.

How much do I pay and how much will I get?

So you can see what difference being on 50/50 makes, here’s what you’d pay in for one year and what you’d get back if your yearly pay was £20,000.

What if I’m off sick and on 50/50?

If you’re sick and getting full or half pay while you're sick, you’ll stay in the 50/50 section. But if you’re sick longer and your pay stops, your employer will put you back into the main part of the scheme, and we’ll work out your pension for that time just as we would if you’d paid full contributions.

What if I’m paying extra?

if you’re buying extra pension with APCs (additional pension contributions) you'll have to stop paying those when you go 50/50.

But you can continue or even start paying APCs to cover a period when you were absent or on strike.

If you’re paying shared-cost APCs (SCAPCs) or shared-cost AVCs (SCAVCs) you can continue to pay these and you can start paying AVCs (additional voluntary contributions) whenever you like, as usual.

How do I move to 50/50?

Ask your employer for a 50/50 form or download a copy here, fill it in and give it back to them. They’ll put you on 50/50 from your next pay day.

How do I cancel 50/50 and join the main scheme again?

Ask your employer for a 50/50 cancel form or download a copy here, fill it in and give it back to them. They’ll put you back into the main section of the pension scheme paying full contributions from your next pay day.

A transfer usually buys more if it's completed within a year of you joining the LGPS. If you decide not to start the ball rolling now, your employer or your former pension scheme might not allow it at all later on.

A transfer can be accepted from another registered pension scheme (approved by HM Revenue & Customs) or a European pensions institution. But a transfer can not be accepted in respect of pension credit rights awarded as part of a Pension Sharing Order.

Don’t delay – you could lose out!

The LGPS is a club scheme

Club schemes (mainly public sector schemes) have a special arrangement that means the transfer credit your transfer buys closely matches the benefits you built up in your former scheme. But a transfer can only be dealt with on a ‘club basis’ if you go ahead within a year of joining the LGPS. If you don’t, a transfer can only proceed on a ‘non club basis’ and will probably buy a greatly reduced transfer credit.

Think carefully

Don’t make your mind up about transferring now. The best time to make your decision is when we tell you how much pension the transfer would buy for you.

The six steps to a transfer

1. You ask for a transfer quote* (use this form, fill in part A and send it to your previous pension provider)
2. You send the quote to us
3. We send you a quote of what the transfer would buy for you in the LGPS
4. You let us know if you want to go ahead
5. Your previous pension scheme pays the transfer value to us
6. We update your pension scheme record and tell you what the transfer has bought for you in the LGPS

Visit the Knowledge hub for more information.

If you have paid into the LGPS before, you may want to move that membership into your new pension record. It's not always better to move it though.

The rules are complicated and depend on what previous membership you have. Some members need to choose if they want to link previous membership. Other members need to choose if they want to keep previous membership separate – otherwise the membership will be automatically linked.

An election must usually be made within the first 12 months of rejoining the scheme, or leaving a job that overlaps with your current job – but your current employer can extend this time limit as long as you are still paying into the scheme in your current job.

Membership will be automatically linked for members who haven’t built up enough membership to keep separate benefits.

Your employer will let us know if you have rejoined the scheme, or left a job that overlaps with your current job. We will then write to you about your linking options or let you know that your membership has been automatically linked.

If you receive a letter from us about linking options, it will direct you to the relevant fact sheets on this website that tell you about the linking types available to you.

If you paid extra contributions in your old job, please also read the fact sheet that explains this. 

For more information, click on the 'Linking Type' link in the table below.

Linking information and factsheets.

The annual allowance is the amount your pension savings can go up in any one tax year before you have to pay an extra tax charge on it.

From the 2023/24 tax year the standard annual allowance amount for most members is £60,000.

But different rules apply if

• your taxable income (from all sources) is more than £200,000 (rate applicable to 2023/24). Then a tapered annual allowance may apply to you. Click on the link to read more about the taper and how it is worked out, or
• you have flexibly accessed any of your pension savings in a defined contribution pension scheme or qualifying overseas pension scheme
  • the Money Purchase Annual Allowance rules may then apply. Click here to read more about those rules.

Am I likely to be affected by the annual allowance?

Most members won’t be affected by the annual allowance because their pension savings won’t increase by more than the standard annual allowance of £60,000.

You are most likely to be affected by the annual allowance if

• you have a lot of scheme membership and you receive a significant pay increase
• you pay a high level of additional contributions
• you are a higher earner
• you transfer benefits from another LGPS or public sector pension scheme which may (in some cases) be subject to Final Pay Protection and your pay has increased, or
• you have flexibly accessed benefits from a defined contribution pension scheme or qualifying overseas pension scheme.

To find out more about annual allowance and to understand if you might be affected visit the Knowledge Hub.

The tapered annual allowance further limits the amount of tax relief high earners can claim on their pension savings by reducing their annual allowance to as low as £10,000.

From 6 April 2016, the government introduced a tapered annual allowance for high earning members.

If your ‘Threshold Income’ and ‘Adjusted Income’ exceeds the limits applicable to the tax year, your annual allowance is reduced.

The following table explains these terms and shows the relevant limits.

Threshold income includes all sources of income that are taxable, e.g. property income, savings income, dividend income, pension income, social security income (where taxable), state pension income etc.

The taper reduces the AA by £1 for every £2 of adjusted income received over the threshold until the Minimum AA is reached.

Action is based on the following: for every £2 that your Adjusted Income exceeds the limit, your AA is tapered down by £1 to a minimum level of £4,000 for 2020/21 onward (or £10,000 for tax years before this and from 2023/24).

The lump sum allowance (LSA) is set at £268,275. It limits the amount of tax-free cash you can take.

Lump sum allowances were introduced from 6 April 2024 to replace the lifetime allowance (LTA) that had been in place since 2006.

The LSA is used up when a member takes payment of a relevant lump sum from a pension scheme (if a member takes a trivial commutation or small pots payment these will not impact the LSA). If you have a valid lifetime allowance protection the limit will be higher.

A relevant benefit crystallisation event (RBCE) takes place when a relevant lump sum is paid and a check against the new lump sum allowances is performed. Where a lump sum is paid in excess of the new allowance it will be taxed at your marginal income tax rate.

Types of lump sums that will be tested against the LSA:

• a pension commencement lump sum (PCLS)
• an uncrystallised funds pension lump sum (UFPLS)
• a stand-alone lump sum (SAL)

The lump sum and death benefit allowance (LSDBA) is set at £1,073,100. It limits the amount of tax-free cash that can be taken by an individual and paid in respect of them when they die. On payment of a relevant death benefit lump sum the LSDBA will be used to check if the total of any relevant lump sums mentioned above plus any relevant death benefit lump sums exceed the LSDBA limit. Lump sums paid in excess of the LSDBA will be taxed at your (or your beneficiary's) marginal income tax rate.

Types of lump sums that will be tested against the LSDBA:

• a pension commencement lump sum (PCLS)
• an uncrystallised funds pension lump sum (UFPLS)
• a stand-alone lump sum (SAL)
• a serious ill health lump sum (under 75)
• a relevant lump sum death benefit
• the payment of a defined benefit lump sum death benefit (DBLSDB).

If someone is certified as having a life expectancy of less than one year and certain conditions are met, a serious ill health lump sum (SIHLS) can be paid. In England and Wales, an SIHLS is only payable for members who left the scheme before 1 April 2008.

For more information about the lump sum allowance visit the Knowledge Hub.