Joining the Fund
If you are a new employee and are eligible you will be included automatically as a member of the Fund as soon as you begin work, unless your contract of employment states otherwise. Membership is not compulsory and you can opt out if you wish.
Eligibility
You will be included in the Fund when you start your job with a participating employer, as long as:
- You are a full- or part-time new employee of a participating employer who allows new entrants
- Your employer agrees
- You are not aged 75 or over
You are not required to be a member of the Fund. If you would like to opt out of membership, you will need to complete an opting out form, giving us at least one month's notice, but you should consider the benefits that you are giving up before opting out.
If, after opting out, you want to rejoin the Fund, you may by giving notice in writing to the Fund Office. However, your eligibility to certain Fund benefits may require the consent of the Trustee and Participating Employer, for which they may require you to provide evidence as to your state of health.
If you are eligible to join the Fund you will automatically be enrolled into the Fund on the commencement of your employment.
If you are eligible to join you should complete an Opt In application form and return it to the Pension Fund Office
If you are eligible to join the Fund you will be automatically enrolled on joining the company. If you do not want to join the Fund you can opt out of the Fund but will lose out on valuable benefits; for information on opting out please see the opting out section of the website
The Fund is a defined benefit scheme which means that the benefits payable are calculated on a set formula linked to your salary and service while a member of the scheme.
You contribution to the Fund is 5 per cent of your contributory pensionable salary, but you receive tax relief on your contributions which reduces the cost in terms of take home pay
The employer pays the balance of the cost of providing the benefits under the Fund and their current contribution rate is 27.3 per cent of your contributory pensionable salary
While this is not a condition of membership, we strongly recommend that you do complete an Expression of Wish form when you join the Fund
Our Guide to Members available in the document library contains details of all the benefits of Fund membership
The Fund provides life cover of 4 times your pensionable salary while you are an active member of the Fund. We recommend that you complete an Expression of Wish form and keep it up to date so that in the event of the death in service lump sum being payable, the Trustees will know your wishes in relation to the distribution of any lump sum payable. Whilst the Expression of Wish form is not binding on the Trustees, they will always consider the Expression of Wish form when deciding how the lump sum death benefit is to be paid.
Once you have completed 2 years membership of the Fund, an adult dependant pension and children’s pensions may be payable. The payment of these is dependent on satisfying the conditions of the Fund Rules. The Guide to members provides more details on these benefits.
No, the Fund Rules stipulate contributions at the rate of 5 percent of contributory pensionable salary, you do not have the option to pay at a different rate.
No, the only way to do so would be to opt out of the Fund and then rejoin at a later date, but if considering this course of action we would recommend that you seek suitable independent financial advice.