The Department of Health in Northern Ireland, as responsible authority under the Public Service Pensions Act (Northern Ireland) 2014, is required under the Firefighters' Pension Scheme Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015 ('the 2015 Scheme Regulations') to issue actuarial guidance on payments for added pension.

The scheme manager is required to determine the amounts to be credited to the Added Pension account based on the actuarial guidance under the 2015 Regulations.

The purpose of the note is to provide the factors for determining the amount of Added Pension (AP) to be credited to a member's pension account in respect of lump sum and periodical payments made by members to purchase such pension.

This guidance relates only to benefits accrued under the 2015 Scheme Regulations. Some firefighters may also have benefits under the FPS 2007 or the NFPS which should be dealt with separately according to relevant scheme guidance.

The following changes have been made when reviewing this guidance:

• Important information around the expected audience for the guidance, use of the guidance, review of factors, compliance and limitations applies across all sets of guidance. Rather than being repeated in each set of guidance, this can now be found on the scheme home page. It is important to read this information alongside the guidance.
• Calculation methodology: No changes have been made to the calculation methodology.
• Examples: There are no examples in this guidance. Worked examples, using the calculation methodology, can be found in prior versions of the guidance (though please note that these use historic factors).
• Factor tables: The "Factor Tables" tab contains the names of the tables that are referenced in the calculation methodology. The tables of factors themselves can be found in the most recently published "Consolidated Factors Workbook" which is available by clicking the "Download current Consolidated Factors Workbook" button on the scheme's home page.
• Assumptions: The key assumptions underlying the factors in each note are contained in the Consolidated Factors Workbook.
• Regulations: The regulations that require the production of the actuarial factors and/or guidance that is the subject of this note are summarised in the "Regulations" tab.