Pensions

Pensions are, of course, designed to enable you to save enough money during your working life to provide an income stream for you to live comfortably after you have retired.

There are many different ‘tools’ used to save for retirement and the taxation and investment elements of pensions can appear baffling. We specialise in explaining, recommending and monitoring pensions for you. For your information, we’ve provided some basic information about the most common types of pension:

An Occupational Pension (through an employer’s pension scheme)

This could be a Final Salary Scheme (sometimes referred to as Defined Benefit) or a Money Purchase scheme (usually referred to as Defined Contribution). Pensions deriving from Final Salary schemes are usually based on your years of service and final salary multiplied by an accrual rate. The benefits from a Money Purchase scheme are based on the amount of contributions paid in and how well the investments in the scheme perform.

Personal Pensions Schemes (including Stakeholder schemes)

These are also Money Purchase schemes and are open to everyone and especially useful if you are self-employed, or for topping up existing arrangements. From October 2012, the government introduced reforms and all employers now have to offer their employees, who meet certain criteria, automatic enrolment into a workplace pension. Employers can use the government backed scheme, National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), or offer an alternative ‘Qualifying’ workplace pension scheme such as a Group Personal Pension, providing it ‘ticks’ certain boxes. The process was phased in between 2012 and 2018 depending on the head count of a firm. Employers are required to contribute a minimum of 3% of salary with Employees making a personal contribution of 4% with tax relief of 1% added on top.

The Basic State Pension

For those whose state pension ages falls before 6^th April 2016 – for people who have paid enough National Insurance contributions while at work or have been credited with enough contributions.**

Additional State Pension (as above)

Referred to as the State Second Pension (S2P) but before 6 April 2002, it was known as the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS). From 6 April 2002, S2P was reformed to provide a more generous additional State Pension for low and moderate earners, carers and people with a long-term illness or disability and is based upon earnings on which standard rate Class 1 National Insurance contributions are paid or treated as having been paid. Additional State Pension is not available in respect of self-employed income.
From April 2016 both the basic state pension and additional state pension were combined to offer a simple single tier flat rate pension. **

Single Tier State Pension

The new State Pension is a regular payment from the government that you can claim if you have reached State Pension Age (SPA) on or after 6 April 2016. Other arrangements applied prior to that date.

You’ll be able to get the new State Pension if you are eligible and:

• a man born on or after 6 April 1951
• a woman born on or after 6 April 1953

The full new State Pension is £168.60 per week (2019/2020). Your National Insurance record is used to calculate your new State Pension. You’ll usually need a minimum of 10 qualifying years to get any new State Pension and 35 qualifying years for the full amount.
The amount you get can be higher or lower depending on your National Insurance record.

** For those who have reached state pension age on or after 6th April 2016, these no longer apply.