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Taking your pension

When you retire you'll receive a pension, payable for your lifetime that is revalued annually in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Please see our pension increase guide for more information on how your pension is revalued.

You'll also be given the option to exchange some of your pension for extra tax free cash within Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) limits. For information on these limits please see our 'Tax allowances' page.

You can also download our Tax controls on pension savings factsheet.

The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) offers flexibility in when you can retire which ranges from age 55 to 75. 

From April 2014, your normal pension age (NPA) in the LGPS is the later of your state pension age (SPA) or age 65. Please note that your SPA today will not necessarily be your SPA in the future, as the Government review the SPA once every 5 years and so this is assessed at the point your benefits are paid.

Under current legislation, SPA is planned to increase to:

  • Age 66 if you were born between April 1954 and April 1961
  • Age 67 if you were born between April 1961 and April 1978
  • Age 68 if you were born after April 1978

You'll find more information in our When can I take my pension? factsheet.

It's important to appreciate that all pensions built up before 1 April 2014 are protected. For details on how your pension is calculated for membership before 1 April 2014, see our Scheme guide.

Our Publications page gives you access to all our useful factsheets and guides created to help you manage your pension.

We’ve listed some of these below for you:

Plan for retirement with our Budget Planner tool

Our Budget Planner tool lets you keep track of all your expected income and outgoings once you retire and shows you how much more you might need to be putting aside. Check out our Budget Planner tool today!

An option to retire early

You can choose to retire from age 55 and receive your benefits immediately, although they may be reduced for early payment.  Your Scheme employer has the discretion to waive this reduction and to also ‘switch on’ any 85 year rule protections that may apply before age 60; the circumstances outlining where these would be considered are covered in their policy.

For more information on early retirement, visit our Retiring early page.

Redundancy cover

The LGPS provides pension benefits to cover redundancy and business efficiency retirements from age 55 with no reduction.

Partial retirements

If you reduce your hours or move to a less senior position on or after age 55, you can, if your Scheme employer agrees, draw some or all of your benefits built up to the point you reduce your hours or move to a less senior grade; this is to help you ease into retirement, although the benefits you receive at that time may be reduced for early payment.

For more details on Partial retirement see our Partial retirement factsheet.

Ill health cover

The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) provides benefits if you have to retire because of ill health. These benefits may be enhanced depending on the severity of your condition.

For more details about ill health retirement please see our Ill health page.

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