Your deferred pension
The Environment Agency Pension Fund (EAPF) is part of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). It’s governed by the LGPS regulations, which change from time to time.
The EAPF has produced this guide for members who’ve left their employment (or opted out of membership) before they’re entitled to immediate payment of retirement pensions. This guide is not intended to be a definitive guide on deferred benefits. However, it provides a lot of useful information.
Losing track of your deferred pension can easily happen, so it’s really important to keep us up to date with your contact details such as your current home address and email address.
Updating your details regularly helps us to keep you informed so you know when your latest deferred annual pension statement is ready to view online each year.
We also send out an annual deferred member digital newsletter, so making sure your email address is updated helps us to let you know when important Government changes happen that may affect your deferred EAPF pension.
You can update your details by either:
Logging into your EAPF Online account at portal.eapf.org.uk
Emailing us at info@eapf.org.uk
Calling 0800 121 6593
If you stop paying contributions to the EAPF before your normal pension age (NPA), the pension benefits you’ve built up will become deferred in the EAPF; this is called a ‘deferred benefit’.
Your deferred benefit is made up of an annual pension, which, once in payment, is payable for the rest of your life; it also provides financial protection for your family in the event of your death. In addition, if you’ve membership prior to 1 April 2008, you’ll receive an automatic tax free lump sum.
When you eventually take your benefits, you’ll have the option to exchange some annual pension to receive a tax free lump sum, or increase your automatic lump sum.
You won’t be entitled to a deferred benefit if you:
Were a member for less than 2 years1 (or less than 3 months if you left between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2014); and
Don’t hold any other LGPS benefits in England or Wales
Instead, you’ll usually be entitled to a refund of your contributions, less any deductions for tax and the cost of re-instatement back into the State Second Pension scheme (this only applies if you’ve service before 6 April 2016)
1 Although you may have been a member of the Scheme for less than 2 years (or less than 3 months, if you left between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2014), you may, in some circumstances, still qualify for a deferred pension. If you have been a member of the Scheme for less than 2 years (or 3 months, if you left between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2014) and would like to know more, please contact Capita.
Once you’ve left your employer or opted out of the Scheme, we’ll write to you to confirm the value of the deferred benefits awarded to you and what options you have after you leave your employer or opt out of the Scheme. We’ll aim to send you these details within 10 working days of receiving the information we need from your employer.
Each year, you’ll receive a deferred member pension statement in July giving details of your deferred pension figures with the latest inflationary increases applied. We'll email you to let you know when your deferred pension statement is ready to view on EAPF Online. It’s important to keep us up to date with your email address so that you don’t miss our annual deferred member communications. See our ‘Don’t lose track of your pension’ section for more details and how to contact us.
Once you’re a deferred member, your benefits will be revalued every April, in line with the cost of living, both before and after your pension is put into payment (though please see the section on ill health later on). This ensures that, years from now, your pension and lump sum will retain their ‘buying power’.
Your benefits are normally payable from your ‘normal pension age’ (NPA). However, you can take your benefits from as early as age 55 (with reductions for early payment) or, if you left after 31 March 1998, as late as age 75 (with increases for late payment).
For more information on your NPA, the reductions/increases that apply for early or late payment and any early retirement protections you may have, see our ‘When can I take my LGPS pension?’ factsheet at www.eapf.org.uk/publications. You can also use our ’85 year rule checker tool’ online.
See our ‘When can i take my deferred benefits?’ section for more details about taking your deferred pension.
If you’re not a contributing LGPS member in another employment, you’re more than one year away from your NPA, and you’re not receiving a LGPS pension (other than a pension credit or survivor’s pension), you can choose to transfer your LGPS benefits to another pension scheme (such as a personal pension, new workplace pension scheme, etc.)
If you later decide to rejoin the LGPS and you’ve not transferred your benefits or received a refund, your deferred benefit will be automatically added to your new LGPS pension record unless you elect to keep it separate.
Before you make any decisions to transfer your deferred pension, you should watch this short video about ‘Transferring your pension’ below.
When you stop contributing to the Scheme, we’ll use the information provided by your employer to decide if you’re entitled to a deferred benefit and, if so, the value of that benefit.
We use the formula below to calculate the value of your benefits:
Membership (pre 01/04/08)
X
1/80
Final pay
= A
3/80
= B
Membership (01/04/08 to 31/03/14)
1/60
= C
Pensionable pay paid each year after 31/03/14
1/49
Revaluation Factor (CPI)
= D
Annual pension
=
A+ C+ D
Automatic tax free lump sum
B
