General questions

Are you saving enough for a comfortable retirement?

Even if you have been saving for your retirement for most of your working life, your pension may not be big enough for you to live on comfortably when you do retire or provide enough for your dependants.

The LGPS is a good pension scheme which will provide a reasonable benefit for many of its members in retirement but this will depend on members’ personal circumstances.

What can you do?

One option is to make extra contributions to boost your pension. You may wish to get independent financial advice before making decisions related to your pension.

Retirement Living Standards

Pensions UK has published a set of ‘Retirement Living Standards’ to help us all picture what kind of lifestyle we might have in retirement and what it might cost. Please visit www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk for more information.

All of us look forward to a happy and comfortable retirement. 

To have that little extra during your retirement years you may wish to consider paying extra contributions, which can be a tax efficient way of topping up your income when you retire.

Your employer also has the power to award you additional pension, although this is discretionary and there is no obligation for them to do this.

Please visit the 'Increase my payments' page in Help & support to learn more. For any further information, feel free to contact us.

The full new State Pension for 2026/27 is £241.30 per week, although the amount you will get will depend on other factors, including:

• If you were contracted out before April 2016 (see next section for more information),
• The number of National Insurance qualifying years you have, and
• If you paid into the Additional State Pension before 2016

You can use the Government’s Check Your State Pension service to get a forecast of your state pension and find out how many National Insurance qualifying years you have.

If you have questions relating to State pensions visit www.gov.uk.

You can also find out your State Pension age using the State Pension age calculator.

Background

From the 6 April 1978 to 5 April 2016 members of the LGPS paid a reduced rate of National Insurance Contribution by virtue of being "contracted out" of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme SERPS - later known as the State Second Pension or the Additional State Pension.

This system meant that instead of paying full National Insurance Contributions and getting both the basic state pension and the State Second Pension LGPS members paid a reduced rate of National Insurance but only got the basic state pension.

From 6 April 2016, contracting out ended and the government introduced a single flat rate state pension system. This meant that from 6 April 2016, members of the LGPS have been paying the full rate of National Insurance Contributions. The amount extra that you have had to pay will depend on your salary.

Click here to find out more about contracted out status and how it affects your state pension entitlement.

If you have less than 2 years Scheme membership and have not transferred pension rights in from another pension scheme you can apply to get a refund of your contributions.

Only your own contributions are refundable, those paid by your employer are not. There will be deductions to account for tax relief and, if applicable, National Insurance.

Paying in members

To encourage people to pay into a pension there are special rules on how contributions and some benefits are taxed. Contributions receive what is known as ‘tax relief’ meaning that you do not pay income tax on the value of your pension contributions.

There is an annual allowance that limits the amount your pension can increase by each year before additional tax charges apply. This limit is set by His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and can change each year. Most people will be able to save what they want with full tax relief as their pension contributions will be less than the allowances.

The limit for 2026/27 is £60,000, although there are now special rules for those higher earners with adjusted earnings in excess of £260,000 per annum. Please contact us if you believe you might be impacted by the annual allowance.

When they come to retire, most people will be able to take any pensions lump sums tax-free, but there is an overall tax-free lump sum allowance of £268,275 (2026/27). If a member takes more than this amount as lump sums from all of their pension arrangements, the excess is taxed as income.  

You can get more information from HMRC on the annual allowance here and on the lump sum allowance here.

Pensioners

You may still have to pay tax on your income when you start to take your pension, although you will not pay National Insurance Contributions after you reach your State Pension age.

We deduct income tax via Pay As You Earn (PAYE).

It is His Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) that works out how much income tax you should pay and provides us with the tax code to be applied to your pension. You will need to speak directly to HMRC.  You can find a range of contact options for HMRC here on their website.

You will need your National Insurance number (you can find this on your P60).

You may need to contact us if you are going back to work in Local Government, or an employer where you could become a member of the LGPS. In most cases further employment will not affect your pension. But you must tell us if you take up further employment.

The death in retirement section has details about what further benefits might be payable from the Scheme in the event of your death. The Register a death page also sets out how to ensure the pension scheme is informed of a member’s death.