The organisation
Thames Valley Police has a total Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) workforce of 3711 employees. They launched their salary sacrifice Shared Cost Additional Voluntary Contribution (Shared Cost AVC) scheme in September 2019, to support their LGPS members’ financial wellbeing by enabling them to make their money work harder for them.
Shared Cost AVCs give LGPS members the opportunity to grow a bigger retirement pot and therefore potentially retire early. Savings are made on National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and Income Tax on anything they put into their Shared Cost AVC pot. Best of all, offering the valuable benefit of Shared Cost AVCs has helped this organisation to boost the financial security of their employees.
Initially, many of the LGPS employees at Thames Valley Police were unaware of how they could use Shared Cost AVCs to enhance their lives at retirement. Since launching their scheme, the organisation has worked closely with AVC Wise to improve scheme engagement using a wealth of employee communications and educational materials from our retirement experts.
Objectives
Increase understanding of their Shared Cost AVC scheme amongst employees
Achieve higher registration of LGPS members on their AVC Wise portal
See more LGPS employees taking advantage of the scheme
September 2019 scheme launched
3711 LGPS members
The implementation
As part of a Communications Plan outlined by AVC Wise, Thames Valley Police built participation in their scheme by offering employees access to educational materials on their Shared Cost AVC portal. These include a variety of bespoke digital items such as intranet posts and e-shots.
In addition, their employees had access to a variety of expert led webinars hosted by AVC Wise, covering topics such as: ‘The LGPS and Shared Cost AVCs’ and ‘How to retire early and with more money’.
To keep employees well-informed, webinars have been updated along the journey to stay on top of upcoming economic changes, for example: ‘End of tax year approaching… Act now!’ and ‘National Insurance: What you need to know in 2022’.
To further support their LGPS members, Thames Valley Police hosted a series of face-to-face seminarsfor employees within 5 years of retirement to discuss financial health and wellbeing. Following this, in December 2021 these employees were all invited to an AVC Wise hosted webinar ‘Maximising your Shared Cost AVC’, which gave more information about how LGPS members can make their money work harder during their remaining working years with Shared Cost AVCs. Employees can also book Individual Meetings, which offer them the opportunity to meet on a 1 to 1 basis with AVC Wise retirement experts for further support.
In addition to these options, employees have access to a range ‘Always On’ materials on the AVC Wise website, which include explainer videos, a savings calculator, and FAQs.
The results
Sep 2019
Employee registration 85
Accepted Plans 52
Accepted monthly salary sacrifice £21,937
Employee registration vs LGPS members 2.3%
May 2022
Employee registration 571 = 571.7% growth
Accepted Plans 140 = 169.2% growth
Accepted monthly salary sacrifice £56,066 = 155.6% growth
Employee registration vs LGPS members 15.39%
£161,706 Employer savings since launch
If you would like to support your employees’ financial wellbeing and see resulting organisational savings like Thames Valley Police, contact us now on 01252 959 779 or email us at info@avcwise.co.uk.