FAQs

The level of your pension contributions can be a key factor in determining the overall size of your investment account at retirement. You should regularly review your investments and the amount you contribute and consider whether you need to make higher contributions to meet your retirement income needs. There are many on-line pension calculators which can help you to assess whether your estimated pension at retirement will meet your income needs. Hargreaves Lansdown's retirement planner is at http://www.retirementservice.co.uk and their Retirement Specialists can be contacted at:

Tel: 0117 314 1798

Email: retirementservice@hl.co.uk.

It is important for the DC Plan Administrator, Aegon, to correctly record any preferred pension age you have selected and notified to the pension provider. Please check your annual benefit statement each year to ensure that it matches your planned pension age.

You should consider taking professional independent financial advice about your long term retirement savings. You can find an authorised financial adviser by visiting www.moneyhelper.org.uk.

To help people understand their retirement choices, the government has introduced a free and impartial service called Pension Wise. Free guidance appointments will be available to members online, over the phone or face to face.

Tel: 0800 138 3944

Web: pensionwise.gov.uk

The limit set by Government each year on the amount of pension savings that you can make tax free. The limit is currently capped at £60,000 (for 2024/2025 tax year) although a lower limit of £10,000 may apply if you have already started accessing your pension. If your annual income is over £200,000 the standard annual allowance may also reduced in proportion to your income.

The Annual Allowance applies across all of the schemes to which you belong, it is not a ‘per scheme’ limit and includes all of the contributions that you or your employer pay or anyone else who pays on your behalf

If all your benefits from the CNPP do not exceed £10,000 and you've reach minimum pension age, or you are retiring at an earlier age because of ill-health you may be able to take your benefits as a single lump sum. This is known as small pot commutation. If benefits are not in payment, you may have the option to take 25% of your investment account as a tax-free cash sum. The remainder will be taxed at your highest tax rate by adding it to the rest of your income (your "marginal" tax rate). You should contact the relevant Plan Administrator for further information.

If you die after your retirement income begins then, usually, there may be further payments or a lump sum paid to a beneficiary. However, when buying your retirement income you can select certain guarantees to ensure certain money is paid out upon your death, such as:

• Guarantee period - You can select a guarantee period of up to 10 years. This will mean that, should you die within the selected period, retirement income will continue to be paid until that period expires.
• Joint-life option - You can select a certain proportion of your annuity to continue to be paid to your spouse or another dependent upon your death.
• Value protection - If you die before a pre-set age and the total gross income paid out is less than the amount of the fund used to purchase the annuity, the balance will be paid out as a lump sum, less a 55% tax charge.

Selecting any of the above options will affect the retirement income you will receive. The degree to which it is affected will depend upon your circumstances and the options chosen.

The choice of annuities available is dependent on what is available in the market place, and may change over time. The Trustee cannot guarantee that any particular option that is currently available, including the SSSO, will continue to be available in the future. The Plan Administrator will advise you on what is available at the time you come to use your investment account to buy your retirement income.

The following paragraph applies only to members of the Springfields Fuels 2, Magnox (including ex-RSRL), LLWR, Sellafield and DSRL Sections: The Prudential, the Trustee's current annuity provider, have withdrawn their preferential annuity quotation service (and this includes the SSSO) for members who joined the CNPP after 14 May 2010. If you joined before 14 May 2010 you are unaffected by this change and will automatically receive a quotation from the Prudential on preferential terms at your retirement date. For those who commenced contributions after 14 May 2010 and do not have investments in the Prudential With-Profits Fund (only available to AVCs), the Prudential will still be able to provide a quotation, on request, but it will not be on preferential terms. (For the avoidance of doubt, members of the GPS DRS, GPS WEC, GPS SLC, GPS Nexia and GPS EnergySolutions Sections should disregard this paragraph).

This option is not provided by the CNPP but is offered at the discretion of the Prudential. The SSSO allows you to use your investment account at retirement to buy temporary retirement income until you reach State Pension Age (SPA). Once you reach SPA the Department for Work and Pensions will commence payment of a State Pension and any SSSO will stop.

You may use all or part of your investment account to purchase a temporary SSSO pension equal to either:

• 100% of the value of the current single person's State Pension; or
• such lesser amount as the funds can secure.

You may exercise the option on retirement providing that it is at least one year prior to reaching the SPA. Any excess funds remaining in your retirement account must be used to buy additional retirement income which will be payable for the rest of your life.

Please note: the SSSO is not available to all CNPP members (please see question 14 "Will the State Scheme Spreading Option (SSSO) be available at retirement?" below).

No, under current legislation once you have purchased your retirement income you cannot change to a different insurance company or get your money back. It is therefore important you consider your options and choices carefully and seek professional advice (for example, by referring to an authorised financial adviser) if you are uncertain. Insurance companies do offer a short cooling-off period during which you may be able to cancel. However, you should carefully consider your options before you decide.

Setting up an annuity can take up to 2-3 months. You will need to decide upon the insurance company you wish to use to buy your retirement income and the paperwork may take some time to complete. Once the Plan Administrator has received your correctly completed paperwork, they will transfer the value of your investment account to that insurance company within 10 working days.

The Trustee has chosen Hargreaves Lansdown to help you obtain a competitive annuity from your DC benefits. There is no charge to use this service, but a commission amount specified in the agreement will be added to the cost of the annuity purchased. You can use Hargreaves Lansdown’s tools and speak with their Retirement Specialists as much as you’d like. You can start accessing these tools on their member specific retirement service website: www.retirementservice.co.uk.

Entering into an agreement to use the Hargreaves Lansdown Annuity Service is not a condition of becoming or remaining a member of the Plan and is not a condition of your pension contributions being allocated under the Plan’s default investment arrangement. If you choose to explore this, Hargreaves Lansdown will contact you with further details about your options at retirement, including personal annuity rates from their whole of open market panel.

You can open an Aegon Master Trust Income Drawdown account within the Aegon Master Trust which allows you to leave your benefits invested and receive an income from your fund. If you want to you can also take a tax-free Lump Sum when you allocate funds to provide Income Drawdown. The tax-free Lump Sum would be limited to a maximum of 25% of the value of your benefits.

You can find our more information about the Aegon Master Trust Income Drawdown option by logging into your TargetPlan account at lwp.aegon.co.uk/targetplanUI/login

Please note if you wish to access this option you will need to contact EQ and Aegon.

Yes, you can shop around and compare rates. This is known as the "Open Market Option". Choosing your retirement options is an important decision as you will be buying your retirement income for life.

You don't have to accept the retirement income offered by the Plan Administrator. You can take your investment account to another insurance company and possibly get a better quotation as you would do with house or car insurance. Shopping around can increase your retirement income and market research suggests that each year people throw away £1bn in pension income through not shopping around, so it's important to read the information about shopping around included with the illustration sent to you by the Plan Administrator.

If you’d like to use the Open Market Option, we recommend you speak to an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). If you do not already have an IFA, you can get in touch with one by visiting www.moneyhelper.org.uk/retirement-directory. The adviser will be able to tell you about any fees or commission you’d have to pay.

If you choose option 1, you’ll be able to choose the format of the annuity, you may be eligible for an ‘enhanced annuity’ if you have a medical condition, are in poor health, smoke or are overweight.

You should also consider whether to get a joint annuity that can provide an income for a dependant on death, or whether you would like an annuity to stay level or increase to match inflation. These options have different features, different rates of payment, different charges and different tax implications.

An annuity is a financial product that provides a regular income stream for a fixed period or for the rest of your life. It is similar to a pension. You buy it from an insurance company with the money you have built up in your DC investment account. With annuities, a pre-existing medical condition may work in your favour, and could boost the amount of income you receive. These types of annuities are called enhanced or impaired life, annuities.

If you have final salary Plan benefits and are no longer accruing any AVC and SPPP benefits you may be able to transfer your AVC/SPPP investment account(s) to another provider independently of your main final salary Plan benefits. You should contact EQ, the Plan Administrator, for further information using the details above.

Active DB members: At retirement you must take your AVC/SPPP benefits when your main final salary Plan benefits come into payment. If you want to transfer your AVC/SPPP investment account(s) to another provider independently of your main final salary Plan benefits, you should contact EQ, the Plan Administrator, using the details above

Please note that if you are considering taking your benefits during a period when an investment fund is suspended, you may find that certain options are not available to you. This is because certain benefits available at retirement are only permitted when you take all of your benefits in the Plan at the same time. EQ will let you know if this affects you at the time that you start to make your choice of benefits.

The CNPP Rules do not allow you to defer taking your AVC/SPPPs after you have started to receive your pension from the Plan.

There is a range of options for your Defined Contribution benefits that includes transferring to another provider to access Income Drawdown or buying an annuity.

You can transfer your AVC fund to another pension scheme or arrangement, including a scheme that offers flexible benefits. Please note that if you have an SPPP fund, this must be transferred at the same time as your AVC fund.

Option 1 - You can choose to purchase an annuity through an annuity provider (and take a tax-free lump sum)

You may transfer your benefits to an insurance company to buy an annual pension (known as an annuity).

If you choose this option, you can choose to take up to 25% of your Defined Contribution benefits as tax-free cash. The amount of tax-free cash that you choose to take would be taken from your Fund Value before the annuity is
purchased.

Option 2 - You can choose to transfer your benefits out of the scheme to access income flexibility

You may transfer your benefits to one or more providers to take advantage of their income flexibility products. If you decide to transfer your benefits you could take up to 25% as a tax-free cash sum from your provider. The remainder of your transfer value may be taken as cash subject to the appropriate deduction of tax (known as ‘full encashment’) or the remaining value could be designated to product like Income Drawdown that allows you to flexibly draw an income.

Income Drawdown is a way of taking income from the money you’ve built up in your pension fund without the need to buy an annuity. The fund remains invested, and you take money from the fund as income as required – as little or as much as you want, subject to the terms and conditions of your contract. Fees may be charged each time you take cash, as well as ongoing investment management charges.

While you’re making withdrawals from your pension fund, the remainder of your fund continues to be invested, giving it the potential for growth. Normally, you decide where your fund will be invested.

What you do draw will be subject to income tax and there may be tax implications with accessing flexible benefits. The rate at which income from a pension is taxable depends on the amount of income that the person receives from a pension and from other sources.

To help people understand their retirement choices, the government has introduced a free and impartial service called Pension Wise. Free guidance appointments will be available to members over the phone or face to face.
Tel: 0800 138 3944
Web: pensionwise.gov.uk.

Please see paragraphs A, B and C below.

1. If you are a member of the New Joiners DC Structure and:
   1. you are retiring at your normal pension age (or your selected pension which you notified to the Plan Administrator), the Plan Administrator (Aegon) will write to you at least four months before you are due to retire to explain the options available (see note 1 below); or
   2. you decide to retire earlier than your normal pension age or "selected pension age", your Employer Representative will contact the Plan Administrator to arrange for your retirement options to be issued to you (see note 1 below).
2. If you are not a member of the New Joiners DC Structure but are an active member of the Plan and have made, or are making, DC AVCs or SPPP contributions, your Employer Representative will ask the Plan Administrator (EQ) to arrange for retirement options and quotation(s) to be sent to you (see note 2 below).

   Please note that in addition, the Plan Administrator is required to automatically write to you at least four months before your normal pension age to explain what options are available to you with regard to your DC investment account(s).

3. If you are no longer working for an employer that provides a CNPP pension, the relevant Plan Administrator will write to you at least four months before you are due to retire to explain the options available.

Note 1 - Retirement Options: The Plan Administrator will inform you of the current value of your DC investment account(s), provide details of the retirement options available to you and how you can estimate your future retirement income when you retire.

Note 2 - Retirement Quotations: DC contributions are received monthly from your employer. So if the Plan Administrator is asked (by you or your Employer Representative) to arrange for an annuity quotation to be sent to you, the Plan Administrator must make sure that all contributions have been added to your investment account. This means that an assumption is made about the amount of DC contributions being received in the last month of service (regardless of whether they are normal employee/employer contributions, AVCs or SPPP contributions); if the amount of contribution is significantly different, any quotation given to you before you have left employment will need to be reissued and this may possibly delay settlement of your retirement benefits.

The quotation will provide a range of options for you, but other options are available and you may ask for further quotations that suit your requirements. Please note: quotations are only guaranteed for a short time and an insurance company will usually reserve the right to amend the quotation if you accept after the guaranteed period has expired.

You must be at least age 55* to take your DC benefits. Your pension benefits from the Defined Contribution Structure of the Plan will generally come into payment when you choose to retire and make your benefit choices.

You have the choice of who provides your retirement income and you can shop around so you can decide on the options that best suit you.

Your pension age under the Plan is age 65, however you may retire early after age 55* if you give written notice to the Trustee of at least one month.

* The minimum Pension age under HMRC rules is currently age 55. It is planned that from 2028, this will increase to age 57. This means that from 6 April 2028 you will need to be 57 or older before you can start taking money from your pension.

Retiring early will depend upon your own personal circumstances:

• if you are a current active member you should speak to your Employer Representative;
• If you are thinking about retiring early from the Plan whilst continuing in employment, you should check with the relevant Plan Administrator to see if this is allowed within the Rules of the Plan (as it is only allowed in a small number of situations);
• If you have left your employer and have a deferred pension, you should contact the relevant Plan Administrator for information.

Plan administrators:

For any Defined Benefits (DB) or a combination of DB & DC Benefits queries contact EQ (Equiniti Group) at:

Email CombinedNuclearPensionPlan@equiniti.com
Tel: (UK) 0333 207 6523
(Overseas) +44(0) 121 415 0906

For DC benefits queries you should contact Aegon who is the Plan Administrator for the New Joiners DC Structure at:

Email:  my.pension@aegon.co.uk
Tel: 01753 353414
Web: www.aegon.co.uk