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Your benefits

The Scheme’s normal retirement age is 65. The amount of pension you’ll get depends on your salary and length of service until you became a deferred member – either when you left the Scheme or when the Scheme closed to future build-up of benefits in December 2018.

Your deferred benefits remain in the DB Section ready for you until you either:

  • retire and become a Scheme pensioner, drawing your pension
  • leave the Scheme and transfer your benefits to an alternative pension arrangement
  • die, when the Scheme may pay certain benefits to your dependants.

Retiring early

You can start to take your pension at any time from age 55. If you retire early, your annual pension amount will be reduced for early payment to take account of it being paid for longer. If you’re thinking about early retirement, please remember that the government is raising the minimum pension age to 57 from 6 April 2028.

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Elderly couple in meeting


Retiring late

You can choose to retire later and delay taking your pension until after age 65. In this case, your annual pension amount will be increased for later payment.

Adjustments for retirement options

Because the Scheme gives you options at retirement such as early retirement, taking a lump sum, etc., we need to have a way of fairly converting the pension that would be payable from normal retirement age into a pension that can be paid early or later or as a lump sum.

The Scheme’s actuary does this using ‘actuarial factors’. We use factors so that it’s fair to all members of the Scheme, regardless of when they take their pension. The Trustee reviews the factors from time to time so that they remain in line with market conditions. The Scheme’s main factors are for:

  • early retirement
  • commutation (if you want to exchange some pension for a cash lump sum).

Pension increases

Once your Scheme pension is in payment, it’s increased each year in line with the Scheme’s Rules and with inflation as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). Different elements of your pension receive different increases, as follows:

  • For pension earned before April 1997, the increase is fixed at 3%.
  • For pension earned after April 1997, the increase is based on CPI with a minimum of 3% and a maximum of 5%.
  • For GMP earned between 1988 and 1997, the increase is CPI up to a maximum of 3%. There is no increase on GMP earned before 1988.