Early payment of deferred benefits if you left the LGPS before 1 April 1998

In July 2018, we wrote to all deferred members who left the LGPS prior to April 2014, informing them of the change to Scheme rules from May 2018, which allowed the payment of deferred benefits from age 55 rather than age 60.

 

This change meant that deferred members who left the LGPS before 1 April 2014, no longer needed the consent of their former employer to draw deferred benefits between age 55 and their Normal Pension Age (NPA). Your NPA will be between age 60 and 65 depending on when you joined the LGPS – you can find this information on your deferred benefit statement.

 

A further change to the rules has now been made which means that if you left the LGPS with deferred benefits before 1 April 1998, you no longer have to leave all local government employment to be able to draw your deferred benefits.

 

This means that if you are working in another local government employment (i.e. a different employment to the one you were in when you built up your deferred benefit) you can now choose to take payment of your deferred benefit and continue in your local government employment.

 

This change is backdated to 17 April 2018.