This guidance is provided for the Department of Education Northern Ireland (DENI) as scheme manager of the Northern Ireland Teachers' Pension Scheme (NITPS) and sets out how to determine the appropriate reduction to be applied to a member's benefits when retiring early in normal health.
A member may have benefits in both the final salary sections and the career average section. For the purposes of calculating a member's early retirement pension before any commutation option is exercised, the member's final salary early retirement pension and career average section early retirement pension should be calculated separately using the relevant parts of this 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 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 guidance are summarised in the "Regulations" tab.
This guidance covers early retirements in normal health only. In particular, this guidance does not cover enhancements to be applied in the cases of early retirement in ill health.
