Retirement Savings Plan
- The Retirement Savings Plan – the Plan – offers colleagues an alternative way to save for their retirement.
- There are other valuable benefits for members of the Plan such as Income Protection and Life assurance (Death in service)
- The Plan offers colleagues flexibility and choice of how much they contribute to the Plan. NTU will also pay contributions to your Plan depending on how much you contribute, up to a maximum of 12%.
- You can even contribute 0% and NTU will contribute 8% into your plan.
- You can choose how to invest your pension fund if you wish to.
- There are a number of options at retirement, as well as benefits for dependants and beneficiaries.
- The pension fund is ‘portable’ so you can take it with you if you leave NTU.
At NTU we believe in providing choice in how to plan for your retirement. That is why we have introduced the Retirement Savings Plan.
How the scheme works
The new Retirement Savings Plan, set up through Legal & General, is a Group Personal Pension (GPP), a type of defined contribution scheme where members build up a fund or a pension account in their own name.
The value of their account is based on how much is paid in and the investment performance of the account. This is a different type of scheme to a defined benefit scheme, like the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) or the Teacher’s Pension Scheme (TPS).
The Retirement Savings Plan allows you to build up a retirement fund from all contributions paid into your plan which builds over time. You can decide how the fund is invested.
The amount you receive upon retirement depends on the level of contributions, investment performance, scheme charges, and your choices at retirement. For example, up to 25% of your pension fund can be taken as a tax-free lump sum.
A pension is a long-term investment for your retirement, but its value is not guaranteed - it can go down as well as up and the historical performance of investments is no guarantee of success in the future.
Further details about investment and retirement options can be found on the Legal and General Microsite.
Contribution levels
The Plan is a ‘contribution-matching scheme’ and you have a choice of how much you contribute, as shown in the table below:
|
Your contribution |
NTU contribution |
Total Contribution |
|
0% |
8% |
8% |
|
1% |
9% |
10% |
|
2% (default) |
10% |
12% |
|
3% |
11% |
14% |
|
4% |
12% |
16% |
The default employee contribution rate will be 2% of your salary and NTU will contribute a further 10% of salary into your pension, making a total pension contribution of 12%. If this doesn’t suit you, you can choose from the other options available to you shown in the table.
You can even contribute 0% and NTU will contribute 8% into your plan.
Tax savings through salary sacrifice
Salary sacrifice is available for members of this pension scheme. This means you agree to give up part of your salary in exchange for NTU making all pension payments for you.
This arrangement reduces National Insurance (NI) costs for you and the University.
There are some eligibility conditions to join the Plan with the benefit of salary sacrifice. For example, your monthly contribution to this pension scheme cannot reduce your salary below the National Minimum Wage. See the eligibility tab above for more information.
If you aren’t eligible for salary sacrifice you can still join this pension scheme, but without the salary sacrifice element.
Making a decision
Colleagues should think carefully about the level of the contributions they would like to make before joining the Plan. You should ensure that any contribution you choose will not reduce your salary below the National Minimum Wage (NMW) or the Lower Earnings Limit for National Insurance (NI) purposes.
There are also other impacts to consider when reducing your gross salary, like the calculation of any statutory benefits such as statutory maternity pay (SMP), as well as the salary used for finance agreements such as mortgage applications.
In some cases, however, the reduction in total (gross) pay may have a positive impact on eligibility for things like tax credits or Universal Credit.
For more information about the Plan, have a read through our frequently asked questions.
There’s lots of helpful resources on our Legal and General Microsite, including free online courses to help you review your finances and plan for retirement.
There will be independent financial advice available for all colleagues who are considering joining the Plan. Information can be found here.
Please refer to the MyBenefits Terms and Conditions.
Who can join the Plan:
- The Retirement Savings Plan is currently open to NTU colleagues who are NOT a member of a workplace pension scheme e.g. LGPS, TPS.
- From November 2023 – New starters to NTU may apply to join the Retirement Savings Plan.
- From January 2024: All colleagues currently in a workplace pension scheme may opt out of their existing workplace pension scheme and join the Retirement Savings Plan.
There will be independent financial advice available for all colleagues who are considering joining the Plan. Information can be found here.
Salary sacrifice eligibility
If you are eligible to join with salary sacrifice included, you will get this automatically. This will mean that contributions will be taken before tax and National Insurance deductions, reducing National Insurance costs for both you and the University.
If you cannot join the Plan with salary sacrifice you can still join, but your contribution will be taken after tax and National Insurance deductions.
There are some eligibility conditions to joining the Plan with salary sacrifice. Contributions cannot reduce your salary:
- below the National Minimum Wage (NMW).
- below the Lower Earnings Limit for National Insurance (NI) purposes.
- below the salary threshold for the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code for employees with a Skilled Worker Visa.
Non-salaried colleagues, like those on zero hours or worker contracts, are also not eligible for salary sacrifice. These colleagues can still join the Plan, but without the salary sacrifice element.
There are a number of added-value benefits available to members of the Retirement Savings Plan: