State pension information
Contents
Overview
On 6 April 2016, the Government introduced a new single-tier State Pension for people reaching State Pension age on or after this date. This replaced the existing basic and additional State Pension. If you reached State Pension Age before 6 April 2016 any State Pension due to you will be calculated using the old State Pension rules.
Further information about your State Pension eligibility can be found on the Government website.
Contracting out and guaranteed minimum pension
Prior to 6 April 2016 the State Pension was made up of two parts, the basic State Pension and the additional State Pension. The additional State Pension part was known as the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS) from 1978 followed by the Second State Pension (S2P) from 2002. The amount of additional State Pension you receive depends on your National Insurance contributions.
The LGPS was contracted-out of the additional State Pension between 6 April 1978 and 5 April 2016. If you were a member of LGPS during this time you would have been paying a lower rate of National Insurance contributions and would not have been building up much, if any, additional State Pension. You were building up pension benefits in the LGPS instead.
For the period from 6 April 1978 to 5 April 1997 the amount of additional pension you would have earned had you not been contracted out of the additional State Pension is called your Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP). The LGPS guarantees to pay at least the GMP amount and this forms part of your LGPS pension (it is not paid in addition to it). From State Pension Age (SPA) payment of the pension increases to the GMP may be shared between your pension fund and the Government. Further information about pension increase is available on our webpage Pension increase.
If you have already reached State Pension Age and have a Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) we will have advised you of this and the amount will be shown on any of your online payslips.
If you are not yet State Pension Age and have benefits built up before 1997, we will write to you around your State Pension Age to confirm the effect of your GMP on your Local Government pension.
The new state pension and the Contracted Out Pension Equivalent (COPE) amount
If you have paid into the LGPS between 6 April 1978 and 5 April 2016 and reach State Pension age after 5 April 2016, the amount of new State Pension you receive will be reduced, in respect of this period, to reflect the fact that you have paid a lower rate of National Insurance contributions (due to the LGPS being contracted-out of the additional State Pension). If this applies to you, you are unlikely to receive the full amount of the new State Pension but this will depend on your individual National Insurance record and how many qualifying years you have after April 2016.
For further information about the calculation of the new State Pension and for a definition of a qualifying year please refer to the Government website.
In most cases the pension you get from the LGPS will be at least the equivalent of the additional State Pension you would have received had you not been contracted out. The Government refer to this as the Contracted Out Pension Equivalent (COPE) amount on your State Pension statement. Please be aware that this amount is an estimated figure based on the entire contracted out pension benefits you have built up throughout your working life. If you were a member of 2 or more contracted out pension schemes, the COPE amount will be based on all of these schemes - it is not identified separately by pension scheme. Further information about COPE amounts on new State Pension statements is available in the Government website fact sheet