| 1. Normal retirement |
If you are 65 or over, this is classed as normal retirement. You can draw your benefits as of right, and there are no early retirement reductions. |
| 2. Redundancy/efficiency |
If your employer gives either of these as the reason for you leaving we will automatically pay your benefits. We will work them out on your membership to the date you leave and there will be no early retirement reductions. Redundancy/efficiency retirements are sometimes made as part of a voluntary early retirement scheme (VER). |
| 3. Early retirement at your own choice |
- From 60: no permission needed, but early retirement reductions may apply
- 55 - 59: only with employer’s permission and early retirement reductions may apply.
Reductions depend when you joined and whether you pass the 85 test. |
| 4. Severance without early retirement |
You might accept a severance package to leave but not draw your pension benefits immediately. This might be because...
- You are under 60 and your employer offers you severance but won’t release your pension benefits early, or
- You are over 60, and although you could draw your pension benefits, they would be reduced for early payment, so you choose not to.
So if you do leave without drawing your pension benefits immediately, you will be classed as a leaver: see under 55s for leavers’ options. |
I’ve paid AVCs - what happens to them?
You normally draw your AVCs at the same time as your main Fund benefits. So if you aren’t drawing your main benefits yet, your AVCs will be put on hold with our AVC provider, Prudential. If you are drawing your main benefits, you can draw your AVCs too. There are various ways of doing this.
 Click here for more on drawing AVCs
Who will give me retirement figures beforehand?
We understand that retiring from your employer is a big issue, and you will want to see figures explaining your pension benefits. One of the key elements required to work out benefits is final pay, and this is something worked out by your employer. Also they will know precisely which type of retirement you are being offered, and therefore whether any early retirement reductions should apply. For these reasons, please do not ask us to estimate your retirement benefits whilst you are considering your options - your employer will do this. However if you do go ahead and retire, we will produce final figures once we have been formally notified by your employer.
What about redundancy or severance pay?
Redundancy or severance pay are amounts that may be paid by an employer to a person of any age who is leaving their employment. Your employer is responsible for deciding if you are entitled to redundancy or severance pay and for calculating any payments due. You will need to contact your employer direct if you have any queries about their redundancy/severance package, as these vary between employers. Please note that if you are entitled to receive your pension benefits from us, this will not be affected by any redundancy or severance payments you receive.
I am retiring. When will I hear from the pensions office?
Our performance standard is to write to you with details of your benefits within 10 working days of being notified by your employer of your retirement. Typically we keep to that standard in 95%+ of cases, and will try and do so in the future. However we sometimes get periods when employers are facing savings targets, and offering early retirement to many people. This can mean we have to calculate many more new pensions than normal. When this happens we can increase the number of people working on retirements, but even so delays can sometimes arise. We will however write to you as soon as we can after being notified by your employer. Also, we pay lump sums separately to pensions. So even if your pension misses its first possible pay day, if you have a lump sum we will still pay this as soon as possible. If your pension misses its first possible pay day we will also include ‘backpay’ with your first pension payment.
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