News updates

From understanding pension tax to finding out what would happen to your pension if you die in service, the stories are full of pension’s knowledge and have something useful for everyone.

Read more than 7,000 times combined, our top articles for this year provide a handy recap of some of the most important pension topics and could help you kick off the New Year with a better grasp of your pension and more confidence in your financial know how.

1. Future increase to the Normal Minimum Pension Age

Our most popular article for this year – read nearly 2,000 times – provides an overview of the proposed increase to the Normal Minimum Pension Age (NMPA). NMPA is the earliest age at which most pension savers can access their pensions without having to pay a tax charge - unless they are retiring due to ill health.

The Finance Act 2022, which received Royal Assent earlier this year, will increase the NMPA from age 55 to 57 from 6 April 2028.

Read the article to find out more about the increase.

2. What happens to your pension when you die?

Closely behind is our Death and your pension article. It provides useful information about the death benefits that may be paid out to people or causes that are close to your heart when you’ve gone. There are a few factors that may have a direct impact on the type of benefits that can be claimed following your death and the people who can claim them:

• which type of Scheme and Section you belong to
• the options you select
• whether you’re retired or still working when you die
  

Your Member Guide will have more specific details of your own death benefits. If you’re logged in to your myRPS account, you will find your Member Guide in your home page under ‘My library’.

3. Thinking of retiring? Did you know the early retirement factors were reviewed earlier this year?

The Scheme’s required to review some of the terms of its benefit calculations every so often. You should keep this mind if you’re planning to retire before or after your normal retirement age (NRA).

Depending on when the changes are implemented, they may have a different impact on members. Read more about the latest update from July this year in the Thinking of retiring? article.

Keep an eye on the website for any future updates.

4. A simple guide on the basics of pension tax for this tax year

The topic of pension tax has always been of great importance to our members and there’s little surprise our article on it proved interesting. Pension savers often think of pension tax as a complex and confusing topic so anything to help shine a light on it is always well received by members.

The article offers an easy-to-understand explanation of how tax relief works and an overview of the tax allowances - limits on the amount of pension savings that will benefit from tax relief each tax year and over your lifetime, so check it out.

Now is the perfect time to get to grips with pension tax and how to make the most of it before the current tax year (2022/23) comes to an end on 5 April 2023.

5. All you need to know about your Annual Benefit Statement

Your Annual Benefit Statement (ABS) is probably one of your most important and helpful documents as a member of the Scheme. We’ve published an article earlier in the year that explains the ins and outs of it but essentially it is your one stop shop for information on your pension for the year. Along with more detailed calculations, it tells you about the savings you have now and what they could be worth in the future.

You'll receive your ABS in the post every year.