For existing members from 1 January 2007, a Normal Pension Age (NPA) of 60 will be retained and the current scheme provisions will be modified and improved in the following ways:

• Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) of 55 by 2010, except on grounds of ill health.
• Benefits may be payable to nominated dependent partners (opposite and same sex).
• Spouses’, surviving civil partners’ and nominated dependent partners’ pensions paid for life.
• The better of the last year’s salary or the re-valued (in line with Retail Prices Index (RPI)) average of the best three consecutive years' salary in the last ten years of service to be used for calculating benefits at retirement.
• Revised ill-health retirement package for those permanently incapable of teaching – tiered approach with a higher level of benefits for total incapacity and lower level of benefits for partial incapacity.
• More scope to take a higher tax-free lump sum and a lower level of pension.
• A facility to purchase up to £5,000 of added annual pension.
• An increase in the death grant to three times salary.
• Phased retirement arrangements. These would enable TPS members, under defined circumstances, to continue working as a teacher within the TPS while drawing down some or all of their accrued pension benefits.
• New part-time employees and those who change their contract of employment will automatically become a member of the scheme. They can choose not to be in the scheme by opting out.