News

It’s pension engagement season – so it’s never too early or too late to give your pension some attention!

EAPF Contributing member webinars

We’ll be running our contributing member webinars through October and November this year.  Our annual webinars are tailored specifically to the EAPF and cover various pension topics. Our webinars always receive brilliant feedback, and we use your feedback to ensure we’re always improving them. If you’re unable to make any of these dates, you’ll still be able to watch our presentations on our website towards the end of November.

Book your ticket for our upcoming EAPF webinars today!

Pension Awareness Day live shows

The national campaign organisers have gone bigger this year and have linked up with Grime artist Big Zuu to increase awareness of pensions. You can watch his video about this. They're also hosting some live shows throughout the week commencing 31 October.  Lots of interesting topics will be covered such as State Pensions explained, pensions and tax and how women can better their retirement. Sign up for their live shows at pensionawarenessday.com/live-shows

Why it’s important to keep paying into your pension

We know things are expensive right now and you might be looking at where you can cut back and make some savings. Here's why your pension shouldn’t be one of the things you stop paying into.

• It’s one of the most tax efficient ways you can save for the future. All pension contributions (including any you pay in to AVC’s or APC’s) attract tax relief.
• It might be actually costing you less than you think. Although your contributions may look quite hefty on your payslip, tax relief means that you’re paying less tax because you’re in the pension fund.
• The EAPF is a fund of the LGPS which is one of the best, and most secure schemes available to join. It’s a ‘defined benefit’ scheme so your benefits are ‘defined’ - meaning you’ll know, or be able to work out what you’ll get, based on defined calculations. It doesn’t carry a risk to members linked with investments performance, like the pension schemes you’ll find in the private sector (known as defined contribution schemes). Ours is backed by a government promise too.
• Saving for the future is so important. When you get to the age where you can think about no longer working, you’ll be so glad that you did save.
• Being in the scheme means that you have protection for your loved ones in the event of your death. Your nominated beneficiary would get 3 x your salary as a lump sum payment, and a spouse or nominated cohabiting partner would also get a pension for life.
• With EAPF, you get ill health cover. If you became too ill to work, and if you meet certain criteria following an assessment by a medical practitioner approved by the fund, you’d also be able to access payment of your pension at whatever age you meet the criteria. There are 3 tier’s of ill health, depending on the severity of the condition, and likelihood of being able to work in the future. Two of these tiers include an enhancement to the benefits you’ve built up.

Flexibility to pay less

The Scheme is flexible and gives you the option to pay less in the ‘50:50 Section’. This option means you can pay half your normal contribution for half the amount of pension, so you’re able to keep paying into the Scheme when things are difficult financially.

This is designed to be a short term option, meaning that you'll be re-enrolled into the Main Section automatically at our next ‘auto-re-enrolment’ date which is March 2025 (auto re-enrolment happens once every 3 years). Following re-enrolment, if you’d like to continue paying half your normal contribution, you can then make a further election to rejoin the 50:50 Section. Your ill health and death benefits will remain unchanged when paying into the 50:50 Section. 

If you'd like to join the 50:50 Section, please complete and return our 50:50 Section election form.

Read Part 2 of our EAPF Pension Awareness Week campaign here

Read Part 3 of our EAPF Pension Awareness Week campaign here