Pay less?
If you’re struggling financially you can still stay in the scheme but pay half the contribution for half the benefit. This is known as the ‘50:50 Section’. You’ll retain other benefits such as pensions for dependants, life cover and ill health benefits. We’d recommend that you re-join the Main Section as soon as you’re able, and you’ll be automatically re-joined on your employer’s next re-enrolment date (re-enrolment is required by Law).
Complete our 50:50 Section form to apply.
Pay more?
The LGPS provides excellent benefits but often members join quite late in life, which can restrict the amount of pension they can build up, or they’d like to retire earlier so they might wish to improve the level of pension they want in retirement by paying in a bit more.
There are 2 ways of doing this:
Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs)
This allows you to increase your benefits in retirement by making regular payments directly from your pay to one of our 2 AVC providers, Prudential and Standard Life. You’ll build up a pension pot based on the amounts you’ve paid in and on how well your investments have performed. You’ve a number of ways that you can take this pot when you retire, and you can potentially take up to 100% of the AVC pot tax free as a lump sum (subject to certain tax limits).
Additional Pension Contributions (APCs)
You can make regular monthly payments from your pay or pay with a one off lump sum to buy APCs. This option gives you ‘extra’ pension from the LGPS when you retire. This extra pension you’ve bought is then revalued in line with inflation.
Remember that you get tax relief every time you make a payment into your pension for both the AVC and APC, at your marginal rate of tax. This means you’ll pay 20% less tax if you’re a basic rate taxpayer and 40% less tax if you’re a higher rate taxpayer.
You can pay into both AVCs and APCs up to certain limits. You’ll find more information on increasing your benefits by visiting our ‘I want to pay more into the scheme’ page.