There are no restrictions on the number of changes.  You can increase, freeze, or decrease your contributions at any time.

Regular Direct Debit payment (monthly or annual)

To make personal contributions by Direct Debit you need to:

1. Complete the ‘Making personal contributions to your pension’ form
2. Complete the Direct Debit mandate
3. Return your completed forms – we recommend you post these to us at ‘Freepost THE PEOPLES PENSION’.

We need you to return the completed ‘Making personal contributions to your pension’ form and the Direct Debit mandate to us before we can carry out our checks. We won’t be able to begin taking payments from you until we’ve completed our checks.

If we’re unable to check your identity and bank account electronically, we may need to contact you again to ask for more information. It’ll take us up to 10 working days to arrange your Direct Debit with your bank. We’ll write to you once it’s set up.

Lump sum payment through your online banking (sometimes known as BACS)

To make personal contributions through your online banking (sometimes known as BACS), you’ll need to:

1. Complete the ‘Making personal contributions to your pension’ form
2. Return your completed forms – we recommend you post these to us at ‘Freepost THE PEOPLES PENSION’.

For more information about tax relief, and the amount you can save into your pension and receive tax relief on, take a look at our other knowledge base Q&As:

• What’s tax relief?
• What’s the annual allowance?

If you can afford to, you could think about saving more. The more you pay in, the more tax relief you could get from the government and the more you could get back when you retire. You can always reduce your pension contributions back to the minimum amounts if your circumstances change.

If you want to increase your pension contributions, please talk to your employer first to see if they can set up the extra payments for you. If your employer can’t do this, then you can make personal contributions to your pension by Direct Debit or by a lump sum payment through your online banking (sometimes called BACS). Visit our webpage on workplace pension contributions for more information about making personal payments into your pension.

Currently your employer has to contribute 3% of your qualifying earnings.

Please contact your employer to confirm whether they should still be making contributions for you (some employers will while you’re on long term sick leave, some employers won’t). If so please ask them to make arrangements to pay your missed contributions. If not, please ask them to tell us what your contributions should be so you don’t keep receiving reminder letters. These letters will continue to be sent to you while you’re an active member of the scheme and contributions are missed.

When you return to work your employer can start paying contributions for you again.

Yes, you can receive tax relief on contributions up to £3,600 a year gross for 5 tax years after leaving the UK.

It’s important you inform us of your circumstances so that we know when to stop adding tax relief to your pot. Please note these contributions must come from a UK bank account.

Please note that the pension schemes located in one EU (or EEA) state (the home state) need to apply for authorisation and approval to accept contributions from members who are subject to the social and labour law of another EU state (the host state) unless they’ve been seconded.

The People’s Pension isn’t compatible with regulations in the other EU states, which means The People’s Pension isn’t authorised and approved to accept contributions in respect of European members unless they are on secondment. Under Rule 7.2 of The People’s Pension, where a member who becomes subject to the cross-border regulations is deemed to have left membership on the day before they became subject to them. The admission policy is designed to prevent The People’s Pension becoming subject to the cross-border regulations.

The employer should pay the contributions based on your pay before you went on paternity leave, whilst you should pay contributions based on the pay that you’re actually receiving (for example Statutory Paternity Pay).