About Active Membership
You are an Active Member of the Fund, if you are currently contributing to the Fund or elected to cease contributing at age 60/65 and are still employed by the company.
In this section of the website we provide you with information about the Fund benefits and the options available to you.
Your pension from the Fund is calculated based on your level of pensionable salary and the length of your pensionable service, the formula for calculating your pension is shown below. (If you retire early the pension accrued is reduced for early payment)
In addition the Fund provides other benefits which may be payable to your family or dependents if you die while you are still working for the company.
Your contributions to the Fund only go part of the way to providing the benefits payable, your employer pays the balance of the cost.
Your contributions are payable at the rate of 5 percent of your contributory pensionable salary, these are based on your contributory pensionable salary when you join, then usually change at the start of each year based on your contributory pensionable salary in the previous November. If you change your working hours your contributions will change immediately to reflect the change in the number of hours worked.
We have included a number of life event guides and member guides which provide more details about the benefits available under the Fund.
If you are entitled to a consolidated pay award, then yes for pension purposes when we calculate benefits the pensionable salary will take into account the backdated pay award.
Once the payroll has been run, we receive a data file from payroll to advise us of your revised salary, this can take a several weeks to process all of the changes as additional checks need to be undertaken as a result of the pay award being effective in the previous calendar year.
Your contributions for the calendar year are assessed in November of the previous year and are effective at the new rate from January, the only exception is if you change your working hours in which case your contributions are reassessed at the effective date of your change of hours if that falls after November of the previous year. Any arrears of contributions due will be automatically collected by payroll when you are paid arrears of salary.
Yes as long as you were in service on 1 January 2024 we will recalculate your accrued pension to take account of the pay award.
If you are entitled to a consolidated pay award and have already put your pension into payment before the pay award is paid, we will adjust your pension to take into account the backdated pay award, however there will be no change to the tax free cash sum available.
If you put your pension into payment after the consolidated pay award is paid we will recalculate the pension and tax free cash options to take account of the pay award.
No, as the pay award will not be paid until the new tax year it will not impact the scope you have to pay a lump sum in the current tax year, however it will be taken into account if you choose to make an AVC lump sum in the new tax year.
This would not affect your TfL Pension other than to the extent that any HMRC limits on pension accrual or overall pension from all sources may apply.
There are no exclusions, we recommend that you complete an Expression of wish form to tell the Trustees who you would like the lump sum paid to in the event of your death. You can update your Expression of Wish form at any time should your circumstances change and we would encourage you to do so.
We calculate all benefits based on full time equivalent pensionable salary and pensionable service, so for example if you work 50% of full time hours, 1 year will count as 6 months towards your pensionable service, but your pensionable salary will be doubled to the full time equivalent, this way there is not impact to how your pension builds up if you change your contractual working hours. Our helpsheet on the Fund website contains examples of how this works.
The Fund Rules include an underpin that means if your contributory pensionable salary falls, your pension accrued up to that point based on your contributory pensionable salary is protected and it is only service after the fall that is based on the lower pensionable salary. Further details can be found in our helpsheet on the Fund website.
Your pension is based on your pensionable salary over the last 12 months so the full impact of a promotion will not be seen in your pension until a full 12 months after the increase.
Unless you have changed your working hours your contributions will not change until January when they will be based on your pensionable salary in the previous November.