What are factors?

As with all defined benefit pension schemes, we use factors to calculate your PPF benefits to make sure we're paying you your correct pension, whether you want to retire before, after or on your retirement date, and whether or not you take a tax-free lump sum.

As we're a public body, we have to make sure we don't make a profit or loss, no matter which choices members make. By keeping a regular eye on our factors, we make sure that it costs us the same to pay your pension for life regardless of the decisions you make. We update our factors to allow for external influences such as movements in financial markets, changes to inflation rates or changes to life expectancy. 

We know from research undertaken by other pension companies that our commutation (cash sum) factors are typically more generous than those of other pension schemes. 

When we change these factors, we'll put a message on our member website and our Facebook page.