2024 Roundup

As we enter 2025, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on the important work that’s been carried out in the Scheme in 2024. From Transitional Protection to our new Relatives and Advisors hub, we’ve had a busy year full of new developments and challenges. Read on to see our 2024 highlights.

Updates to contribution bands

The pension increase and updates to contributions bands happened in April. Each April the member contribution bands are updated in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Since April 2024, the pension increase applied to pensions in payment was 6.7% and the rate that employers pay into the Scheme also increased to 28.6%. To find out more about pension increase rates and contribution bands, visit the updates page on our website (This link opens in a new window).

Improved member homepage

You may have noticed that we’ve redesigned our homepage, thanks to your valuable feedback we were able to improve the navigation and look of our homepage. We’ve:

• Created a longer banner image, so we can communicate more key information to you
• Added clearer links to information regarding Transitional Protection, so you can find out more about changes easier
• The wording on our member registration and log in pages has been updated to address common issues you may face when trying to sign up or log in to My Pension Online (This link opens in a new window)
• Finally, we've updated the information about how to contact us and the benefits of the Scheme.

Your feedback is important to us so we can make key changes to our website and improve your experience. Thanks to those who’ve provided feedback and if you’d like to get in touch, you can email us.

Changes to Lifetime Allowance

The Finance act abolished the Lifetime Allowance (LTA) for the 2024/25 tax year and was replaced with three new allowances. The new allowances are: Lump Sum Allowance, Lump sum & Death benefits Allowance and the Overseas Transfers Allowance. They’re broadly intended to replicate the tax-free allowances which were available to pension scheme members under the LTA regime.This change came into effect on 6 April 2024, you can read more about this change on our Lump Sum Allowances (This link opens in a new window) page. There's also more information on the new allowances on HMRC's website (This link opens in a new window).

New Scheme Personalised Calculator

This year we launched our new Scheme Personalised Calculator; it gives you a forecast of your pension benefits based on your data. You can access this calculator through My Pension Online (MPO (This link opens in a new window)), if you haven't already sign up to MPO so you don’t miss out on this great tool.

For those affected by Transitional Protection, it’ll also give you an idea of what you’d receive under the final salary or career average scheme before you make your choice at retirement. For more information of Transitional Protection, check out our dedicated section on our website. (This link opens in a new window)

Log in to MPO (This link opens in a new window) to try the new Scheme Personalised Calculator.

Pension Awareness Week 2024

In September we took part in Pension Awareness Week, which aims to boost people’s interest in their pension.

This year we had a social media campaign with posts covering a wide range of topics. This included benefits of the Scheme, contributions, missing service, retired member’s stories and much more.

We also ran three live member presentations which were:

• Introduction for new starters to the Teachers' Pension Scheme
• Getting the most from your teacher's pension
• Planning for retirement

This was a huge success; we had over 5,500 members and employers register for these sessions which were led by our excellent training team. Thanks to those who got involved with our Pension Awareness Week campaigns and we hope that you found it engaging.

New Relatives and advisors hub

We’ve created a Relatives and advisors hub (This link opens in a new window) to provide information for those who aren’t members of the Scheme but will need to get in touch with us. This could be because they’re a beneficiary, have Pension Credit with us or they’re an Independent Financial advisor. This new section of the website aims to provide key information about what they’ll need to know. Check out our new hub (This link opens in a new window) and be sure to tell your loved ones about it.

New MFA guide

It's important that your personal information stays secure, so your My Pension Online account is secured by Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). This method is a way of confirming your identity before you log in, making your account safer for you and harder for anyone else to access. To help you get to grips with MFA we’ve created a guide to help you navigate this change. To find out more about MFA, you can also visit our FAQs (This link opens in a new window).

These are just a few of our highlights and we’re excited to see what developments we can make in 2025. Thank you to those who’ve been involved by providing us feedback, we always appreciate it. Happy New Year from everyone at Teachers’ Pensions!