Annual Benefit Statements

Your Personal Details

Date of leaving: This is the date that you left or opted-out of your employment within the Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund.

Date benefits payable from: This shows the earliest date from which your pension benefits become payable. This date will be the earliest date you are entitled to receive unreduced pension benefits. You may elect to take your pension benefits from age 60 onwards, but an early retirement reduction may be applied to these benefits as a result. If you are not eligible for unreduced benefits from age 60, your pension would be reduced in accordance with the following table:

Example of early retirement reduction for a deferred member

Mrs Jones' normal retirement age is 65. Her deferred annual pension payable is valued at £6,000 and her lump sum is £18,000. She elects to receive her deferred pension from age 60, therefore her benefits would be released five years earlier than her normal retirement age and would be reduced as follows:

Annual pension

Annual pension = £6,000
Less 23% early retirement reduction of £1,380
Revised total annual pension from 60 = £4,620

Retirement grant

Retirement grant = £18,000
Less 12% early retirement reduction of £2,160
Revised total retirement grant payable from 60 = £15,840

Deferred benefits may also be put into payment earlier, and in full, in the event of permanent ill health. You may also elect to receive deferred benefits early from the age of 55, but you must have your former employer's consent. Benefits paid early may be subject to a reduction to take account of their early payment and the fact that your pension will be paid for longer. If you would like further information on the early release of your retirement benefits,
please contact the Pension Team on 0845 602 7237

The Current Value of your Deferred Benefits

Current annual pension: This is the combined total of your 80ths and 60ths service valued at 11 April 2011 and calculated as follows:

Lump sum retiring grant: This is your total tax-free lump sum based on membership built up to 31 March 2008 only. It is calculated as follows:

Includes pensions increase of: The figure shown against this above is the amount of pensions increase that has been applied to your pension and lump sum since you left your LGPS employment with Berkshire.

Your LGPS Death Benefits

Death Grant: This is the value of the tax-free lump sum which would become payable to your estate or nominated beneficiary(ies) at your date of death (for the purposes of this estimate we have used the date of 11 April 2011). The amount of lump sum payable is dependent on when you left the Local Government Pension Scheme.

If you left the LGPS before 1 April 2008

If you die before your deferred LGPS pension becomes payable, a death grant equal to the value of your lump sum, plus inflationary increases accrued since leaving the Scheme, will be paid as a death grant to your nominee or personal representatives. In addition, if you die and leave a spouse or civil partner, he or she will become entitled to part of your pension.

If you left the LGPS after 1 April 2008

If you die before your deferred LGPS pension becomes payable, a death grant equal to five times the value of your deferred pension, plus inflationary increases accrued since leaving the Scheme, will be paid as a death grant to your nominee or personal representatives. In
addition if you die and leave a spouse or civil partner, he or she will become entitled to part of your pension. If you left the Scheme after 1 April 2008, you are also entitled to nominate a cohabiting partner. For more information on nominating a cohabiting partner please contact the Pensions Team on 0845 602 7237 or download the factsheet here.

Survivor's pension: This is the amount of annual pension which would become payable in the event of your death to your legally married spouse, civil partner or nominated cohabiting partner. Please note that as a deferred member of the LGPS you must have been contributing to the Scheme at some point since 1 April 2008 to nominate a cohabiting partner.

Your nomination details: You can choose who you would like to receive any death grant payable by completing an 'expression of wish' form. If you have already completed an expression of wish form, your nominated beneficiary(ies) will appear in this section. If this section appears blank, we do not currently hold a nomination on file for you. If you have not already made a nomination or would like to change your existing beneficiary(ies), please complete and return the expression of wish form on page 16 of The Quill newsletter. Alternatively you can download our "Expression of Wish" factsheet here.

Your Employment History held with the Berkshire Pension Fund

Employer: This is the name of the organisation(s) you were employed with throughout your membership of the Berkshire Pension Fund. This will also include any service that was transferred in from other organisations or local authorities outside of Berkshire.

Period from/to: Start and end dates of your period of employment.

A note about AVC contributions

Your annual benefit statement does not include any details of Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) which you may have paid through our in-house AVC provider, Prudential. You should receive a separate annual statement from Prudential each year showing the value of your AVC fund. However, if you would like further information regarding your AVC funds held with Prudential, please contact them directly on 0845 607 0077 or visit www.pru.co.uk/localgovavc.

A note about multiple employments

Many of our members within the Berkshire Pension Fund hold more than one deferred pensionable post. We keep a separate record for each pensionable post and a separate annual benefit statement will be issued for each post.

Maximum tax-free lump sum

Under current regulations it may be possible to elect to convert part of your pension into additional tax-free cash on retirement. You are allowed to exchange £1 of pension for an additional £12 of tax-free cash up to a maximum of 25% of the capital value of your total 'pension pot'. You will be provided with details of how this option applies to you before your benefits come into payment at retirement.