Q&As

If you’re already receiving your EY pension, your payments will not reduce as a result of this exercise.

If you are not yet receiving your EY pension, it’s possible that you might be slightly worse off - or better off. But we expect most members will see only small changes to the value of their pension.

This is because GMP conversion involves setting assumptions about the future. A change in these assumptions could mean a difference in outcome for some members.

These assumptions include factors such as how long a member will live. Obviously, we cannot know this for certain for each member. There are statutory protections that are built into the legislation governing GMP conversion. These are intended to reduce the risk of members being worse off as a result of GMP conversion. For example, the actuarial value of your benefits must be the same immediately before and after the conversion exercise. The Scheme Actuary must certify that this is the case before any changes go ahead.

You will receive personalised information explaining how you may be affected by the changes if they go ahead. We expect this to be in summer 2026.

We cannot give examples because each member’s situation is unique, so generic examples would be unhelpful.

We carefully considered whether we could provide worked examples, but we concluded that doing so could create more confusion and therefore be counter-productive. This is because the complexity and nature of a GMP exercise means that the impact is very specific to each member. Simple generic examples would not reflect the many different situations that could apply to any individual member and their circumstances.

We appreciate it is difficult to fully understand the impact of the proposal without actually seeing the financial information. However, we have taken a rigorous approach when deciding what to include in our communications to members, and followed guidance from the Department for Work and Pensions.

We’ll send you a personal statement once we have finished our calculations and worked out how we need to adjust benefits. To produce these statements, the Plan’s actuary will need to carry out a large number of individual, complex calculations. You should get your statement by summer 2026.

We are legally required to consult with you in order to complete a statutory GMP conversion exercise. We need to inform you about the proposals and the reasoning behind them, and give you the opportunity to share your views.

Although member consent is not required, at the end of the consultation period we will look at any feedback we get and consider whether any updates to the proposals on GMP conversion may be required. We will then publish the outcome of the consultation and any next steps.

Our approach is consistent with guidance on GMP conversion legislation published in 2019 by the Department for Work and Pensions. The guidance states that “consultation should be at a high level” and that consultation materials should state that “more personalised information will be made available once calculations have been concluded and benefits adjusted”. We have also engaged with advisers such as the Plan's administrator, legal adviser and actuary to make sure that we have taken all reasonable steps to consult with members.

We decided to run this GMP exercise separately from the benefit conversion exercise run in 2023/2024 because it was too complex to do at the same time. That exercise involved converting Defined Contribution (DC) benefits to Defined Benefit (DB) benefits. For most members, the two exercises relate to different parts of your pension, that you built up in different years.

For most members, the benefit conversion exercise affected benefits built up after 5 April 1997, including ‘reference scheme test’ (RST) benefits. These RST benefits are calculated in the same way for men and women and so do not need to go through the GMP exercise.

A small group of these members (MPP 1990) had a GMP element attached to their DC pension. These members still need to have their benefits checked to ensure that men and women are being treated equally. This will be done as part of this GMP exercise.

Even though we’re changing how increases are calculated, the value of the pension should stay the same due to conversion.

Certain elements of your pension are increased between your employment leaving date (which is when you stop building up pension in the Plan) and the date you start taking your pension. GMP and non-GMP increase at different rates.

We’re planning to change how the increases to GMP are worked out. The new way will match the rate used for the rest of your pension.

When you start taking your pension, we will tell you how we’ll work out your benefits and whether there will be any future changes to your pension due to GMP.

GMP that was built up before 17 May 1990 is not affected by the ruling on making benefits equal between men and women.

However, we plan to convert all GMP in the Plan into non-GMP. So, any GMP you earned before 1990 will be changed as part of this exercise.

It could affect whether or not you get an increase and a back payment, or how much you get.

If you took a PIE offer in 2021, you chose to get a higher pension at the time by giving up some future increases on your non-GMP pension.

That change didn’t affect your GMP. So, like other members, we will check your GMP and see if you would have built up more if you had been the opposite sex.

However, the increases you’ve had on your non-GMP pension since 2021 could affect any increase or back payment you are due as part of this exercise.

For most members of the Plan, elements of their Plan pension might change, but the overall actuarial value of the pension you receive will not change. However, some members might see a small change.

We plan to convert any GMP you have into non-GMP pension. That means it will stop being GMP and will be treated just like the rest of your pension.

We are proposing as part of the conversion process that benefits that built up alongside the GMPs between 6 April 1978 and 5 April 1997 will also be adjusted.

We will send you a personal statement that shows you precisely how the different parts of your pension have changed.

If you are getting a member’s or dependant’s pension and our checks show you have been underpaid, you will receive a back payment as a lump sum. This lump sum will be taxable as income and will be paid via the pensioner payroll (PAYE).

You can apply to HMRC to have the tax spread over the relevant tax years in which the underpayment built up. This might help to reduce the total tax you pay on the back payment. We can give you a breakdown of the underpaid amount by tax year, to help you with this.

Pensions law allows us (as the Trustee of the Plan) to change the Plan’s benefits in this way. As the changes affect pensions that have already been built up, there are a number of steps that we need to take first.

These steps include getting EY’s consent, and taking professional advice. We have done both those things. Now, we must consult all affected members and beneficiaries of the Plan.