New starter to Civil service pension

bontingfromthebeach

Having just spent a few years in the Local Government pension scheme and tackling making AVC’s I’m about to move to a civil service post and could do with some help around what my options are within the scheme as I’ve not been able to find much information. Thanks for any help. 

JoeCrystal

Did your research on this website yield anything?

https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/

hugheskevi

In case you are trying to find out whether you can use AVC in conjunction with the main scheme (alpha) benefits to take the AVCs tax-free as you can in the LGPS, the Civil Service does not allow this.

If you make DC AVC contributions in the Civil Service, they are essentially like a personal pension - you can take them independently of the main scheme benefits, with a 25% tax free lump sum. 

bontingfromthebeach

Thanks for the comments. I was trying to find out what options I have that mirror my salary sacrifice AVcs with LGPS. It looks like there may not be as much benefit to doing this with Civil service so may just top up my SIPP instead…..