If you didn’t pay into the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for long before you left the scheme, you might be able to apply for a refund of the pension contributions you paid into the scheme.
Eligibility for a refund
If you left the LGPS on or after 1 April 2014 we can normally only pay you a refund if your membership lasted for less than 2 years, and you:
- didn't transfer other pension rights into the LGPS (or if you did, the length of membership in the previous scheme(s) plus your LGPS membership is less than 2 years)
- don't already have a deferred LGPS pension benefit
- don't have an LGPS pension in payment
- aren't leaving within the same tax year as you reach your State Pension age
- aren't leaving after your State Pension age
If you left before 1 April 2014
Before 1 April 2014, you qualified for a deferred pension with just 3 months’ membership. So, if you left before 1 April 2014 and paid into the LGPS for less than 3 months and haven’t yet had a refund, you may still be eligible to get your contributions back. If this is the case for you, please contact us.
What you will get back
The payment you will get as your refund will be the pension contributions you paid while you were a scheme member, subject to 20% tax. When you’re contributing to the LGPS, you normally don’t pay tax on your pay until after your pension contributions have been deducted.
If any of your refund includes contributions you paid before 1 April 2016, there will be a National Insurance deduction too. This is because when you paid into the LGPS before April 2016, you generally paid less in National Insurance. The deduction from your refund will give you additional State Pension credit just for that period.
You won’t get your employer’s contributions as part of your refund.
How to apply for your refund
If you want to apply for a refund of your pension contributions, and you think you're eligible, please get in touch with us using one of the options available on our contact us page.
We’ll then write to you with the details of your refund. We'll also ask you to declare that you haven’t started another job eligible for the LGPS. Accepting a refund means you give up any other rights you may have had at that point.
We can’t pay your refund until after a month has passed since you left the scheme. This is because we can’t pay your refund if you return to the LGPS either in Derbyshire or anywhere else in England and Wales within a month of leaving.
If we pay it to you more than 12 months after you leave, we'll add interest to cover the period from the date you left.
You can’t pay your refund back to us at a later date to reinstate your scheme membership.