Choose higher Pensionable pay
If you are in the NAPS Final Salary section, you pay 5.25% (Plan 65) or 8.5% (Plan 60) of your Pensionable pay, or more if you like, into the Scheme. Pensionable pay is used to calculate your Retiring pay. Retiring pay is used to calculate your pension. I pay.
In NAPS, there are two Pensionable pays you can choose from:
- NAPS1 Pensionable pay = the pensionable elements of your basic pay reduced by 1.5 times the Current single person's Basic State Pension.
- NAPS2 Pensionable pay = the pensionable elements of your basic pay reduced by 15%.
For most NAPS1 and NAPS 2 flying staff pensionable pay was increased by 18.75% as part of the NAPS scheme changes introduced from 1 April 2007 and so could be higher than your basic pay.
Things to consider:
- NAPS2 may provide a higher Pensionable pay.
- A higher Pensionable pay means a higher pension.
- A higher Pensionable pay would result in you contributing more.
It is impossible to predict whether NAPS2 will give you a higher pension because it depends on how your salary increases over your working life.
NAPS2 can never produce less Pensionable pay than NAPS1. If at any time, the NAPS2 Pensionable pay becomes less that the NAPS1 Pensionable pay, we will use the latter to calculate your pension. Although you would not lose any pension benefit, you may not gain anything from paying the higher contributions to NAPS2.
On a very general basis, if your NAPS1 and NAPS2 Pensionable pays are approximately the same when you join the scheme, it is likely that there will be no difference in the pension you get at retirement. If NAPS2 Pensionable pay is significantly higher than NAPS1, it is possible that NAPS2 will produce a higher pension (unless your pay rises more than the average) however this would depend on your length of service, whether you expect your pay to rise to a level where 15% of Pensionable pay is more than the NAPS1 abatement rate and when/if you expect this to happen.
You should contact us at Whitelocke House for more information before deciding between the two options.