From April 2024 the government abolished the lifetime allowance. We have attached guidance to help understand the new limits and when a transitional tax-free certificate may need to be considered.

Tax Limit Guidance October 2024 (PDF)

Pensions Awareness Week returns from 9 September 2024. Support ranging from webinars to toolkits will be available on the website at www.pensionawarenessday.com

Download: Pensions Awareness Week article (PDF)

Your 2024 Annual Benefit Statement will be on doorsteps by early September. Alternatively, an online version is available to view now on your member portal account.

Along with your statement you should also receive our 2024 employee newsletter.

If you have a query regarding the figures used in your statement in the first instance, please contact your employer. If you have any other questions about your statement, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Training session

We are hosting an Annual Benefit Statement training session for members via Teams on 26 September 2024 11am to 12 midday. Please email WPFengagement@worcestershire.gov.uk to book your place onto this session as it will be a first come first serve basis.

We would like to invite you to our 2024 Employer Forum. This will be hosted online by Worcestershire Pension Fund with sessions spread across the week commencing 30th September 2024. We have added a suggested target audience to help you get the most out of this year’s forum.

A registration form will need to be completed by each attendee to confirm which session/s they would like to be booked onto.

Download: Employer Forum Schedule 2024 

Following a request from the Minister for Local Government, please find the Funds response to the letter which outlines our approach in respect of efficiencies in the management, governance and administration of the Fund.

Download: Efficiencies in Local Government and Management of LGPS Pension Schemes (PDF)

We have issued these and our 2024 newsletter for deferred members.

If you have not yet received your newsletter, we may not have your up-to-date address, in which case please provide us with your current address by logging in to your member portal.

Logging in to your member portal is the easiest way to ensure all of your details are up to date.

If you have contacted us about your deferred benefit statement, we would appreciate you bearing with us if our phones are busy and whilst we work through our inbox.

We expect our 2024 employee benefit statements and newsletters to be on doormats by early September.

We are excited to announce that our member portal is now live and ready for you to use. You can view and manage your pension where and whenever needed.

You can use the member portal to: 

• update your personal details such as your address 
• see how much your pension might be worth when you retire 
• view your annual benefit statements 
• view and search your documents 
• update your death grant nominees 

We have put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions if you need any help accessing the member portal, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Download: Member Portal Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)

Now that legislation for delivering the McCloud remedy has been published, we will be reviewing all ‘in scope’ benefit entitlements.

To have an ‘in scope’ benefit entitlement you had to be an employee member of the LGPS prior to 01 April 2012 and during the period between 01 April 2014 and 31 March 2022, with no disqualifying break in membership of a public service pension scheme of five or more years.

If before 1 April 2012 you were either an employee member of a different public service pension scheme or an employee member of the LGPS with in a different LGPS fund and have not transferred those benefits into Worcestershire Pension Fund, please contact us with those details, as we will not be aware of them and cannot therefore bring you ‘in scope’.

Although it will take us time to review every benefit entitlement ‘in scope’, you do not need to do anything unless we are unaware of your other public sector pension scheme membership. All ‘in scope’ benefits due an increase will be backdated. You can find out more about the McCloud remedy at The McCloud Remedy LGPS (lgpsmember.org) and Guides and sample documents (lgpsregs.org).

We will update our website with our progress in delivering the remedy. In line with regulatory guidance we will be delivering the McCloud remedy for all new benefit payments we make after 30 September 2023 and prioritising cases where a member or survivor pension is in payment. We will also include details of how McCloud affects members in their annual benefit statement for 2025.