Members who left the DC scheme before 1^st October 2015 with less than 2 years’ service could be entitled to a refund of contributions known as short service refund. This is no longer permitted and the time frame is now only 30 days for those who joined a scheme after 1^st October 2015.

Many leavers of a work based DC scheme will preserve the fund with the administrator and potentially in the future transfer the pension to a personal pension or take the benefits from it.

In a transfer scenario the member would confirm to the trustees that they are taking the transfer value in exchange for the old benefits and the transfer is going to a registered pension scheme.