Your deferred Annual Benefit Statement (ABS)

Each year you will receive your deferred Annual Benefit Statement (ABS). This will be published immediately on My Pension Online.

If you have opted out of My Pension Online, your statement will be posted to you. Your ABS is an estimated value of your deferred benefits, after the adjustment for cost of living is applied, for the previous financial year. This page will help you read your ABS, check we have the correct information about you, and answer any questions you may have. We receive a high number of queries after issuing Annual Benefit Statements, so we ask that you please read this page before contacting us.

This page covers the deferred annual benefit statement only. If you are currently paying into the LGPS, see Your annual benefit statement

If you’re a councillor member, your annual benefit statement will be posted to you. Find more information about your LGPS pension benefits here: Councillor members

Your deferred ABS is divided into three sections. The first section titled ‘deferred member benefit details’ confirms your personal information such as your national insurance number, date of birth and the payroll reference number. If you have more than one pension account, this number will help you identify which employment this statement relates to. The ‘date of leaving’ is the date you left your LGPS employment. This will be blank if you are a pension credit member.

You will also find confirmation of the date your benefits are payable from without reductions. This is called your Normal Pension Age (NPA). You don’t need to wait until this date to take your pension, most people will be able to take their deferred benefits between age 55 and 75. There are reductions if you take your benefits before your NPA and increases if you take them after your NPA.

You must provide us with at least three months’ notice if you want to take your benefits.

For more information see Taking your deferred benefits

The ‘current annual pension’ shown on your statement is the current value of your pension as at 11 April 2022. This will not necessarily be the amount of pension you would receive if you put your pension into payment from this date. If you put your pension into payment before your Normal Pension Age, your pension would have early retirement reductions applied.

If you’re considering putting your pension into payment, you can use My Pension Online to produce estimates of the value payable from any date of your choice after any reductions have been applied. Alternatively, if you are considering taking your pension within the next few years, we can provide you with up to 2 pension estimates in any rolling 12-month period.

If you have a ‘scheme pays deduction’ or ‘a pension sharing order’, these have not been deducted from the amount shown on the ABS.

If you have already passed your NPA, you may have some late retirement increases included in the ‘current annual pension’ value.

If you are planning to take your pension soon and have questions about the late retirement increases that may be payable, contact us.

If you were in the scheme before 1 April 2008, you will have an automatic lump sum retirement grant as part of your deferred benefits. This a tax-free one-off payment made soon after your retirement date.

If you have an automatic lump sum retirement grant, you will be able to increase this amount when you retire. Most people will be able to take a lump sum payment as part of their pension benefits even if they don’t have an automatic lump sum retirement grant included.

For more information about lump sum payments, see Taking your deferred benefits

In the section below the ‘lump sum retirement grant’ you will find an estimate of the current survivor pension attached to your LGPS pension benefits. This is an annual amount payable to a qualifying spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner in the event of your death.

In the next section, you will see the name(s) of anyone you have nominated to receive a death grant payment. The death grant can be paid to any person or charitable trust you choose to nominate. If you haven’t nominated anyone for the death grant, you can do so via My Pension Online, or by completing an expression of wish form.

For more information about this and other death benefits, see If you die before you take your deferred benefits

This section shows any membership you have built up in the scheme in respect of any employment that began before 1 April 2014 only. This is because we stopped using membership to calculate benefits after 1 April 2014. It will also show any membership purchased through a transfer into the scheme before this date.

If you joined the scheme after 1 April 2014 and you have not had a transfer in of membership, this section will be blank. You can view any other membership we hold for you on My Pension Online

It’s really important you check your ABS to make sure everything is right and inform us immediately if it’s not. If you need to update any of your personal details, you can do most things through your My Pension Online account. The ABS is based on your details at 31 March. If you’ve had changes since then, they may not be shown on your ABS.

When you leave your employment, your employer provides us with your membership details and pay information. If you think this is incorrect, you should contact your former employer in the first instance. Don’t forget, only membership that began before 1 April 2014 is shown on the ABS.

Also, if you worked part time, or term time only, it will have taken you longer to build up a full year’s membership than if you had worked full time every week of the year. You can find out more about this here: How we calculate your deferred benefits

If you have more than one LGPS account, you will receive an ABS for each. On most occasions, LGPS accounts will not be combined automatically. For more information, see Combining LGPS accounts

Once you have left your employment, you won’t be able to add any more into your deferred benefit account. Your deferred benefits will be adjusted in line with cost of living.

If you paid extra towards your deferred benefits, either through an APC, ARCs or Added years, these will be included in the calculation and won’t show as a separate amount on the ABS. If you paid AVCs, you will receive a separate statement from your AVC provider.

The LGPS is a defined benefit scheme. Your deferred benefits are calculated based on your salary and how long you paid in. The contributions you and your employer paid in are not shown on the ABS. They are used to fund the deferred benefits you will receive at retirement and are not used to calculate your deferred benefits.

You can find out more about this here: How we calculate your deferred benefits

The rules and regulations of the LGPS are made by the government. From time to time, things can change in the scheme that may impact you as a deferred member. To keep you updated, each year we publish a newsletter on your My Pension Online account containing the latest information. This can be found in the ‘scheme documents’ folder.

View the latest Deferred member newsletter 2022

You can also check our News page for scheme news throughout the year.