Do you know which NHS pension section you are a member of? In the times we live in you can hardly be blamed for glazing over when you attempt to make head or tail of the plethora of information and recent changes relating to the NHS Pension scheme and pension legislation. Recent research has shown that 75% of GPs are unaware of the annual and lifetime allowance limits on their pension savings (Wesleyan, 2020). Possibly more alarmingly, the same research showed that 31% didn’t know which section of the NHS Pensions scheme they were members of. This is not limited to your colleagues in general practice.
Knowing which pension section you are a member of determines the rate at which you accrue benefits, your normal retirement age and, in light of the ‘McCloud Remedy’, could give you some important choices in the future.
Your annual allowance
In the 2020 spring budget, the government increased the earnings limit when you start to experience tapering of your annual allowance from £110,000 to £200,000. This was in response to the issue of so many pension members hitting and exceeding the annual allowance limit, often due to their allowance being tapered due to ‘high earnings’.
