Lewis Workplace Pension Trust

Lewis Workplace Pension Trust is a master trust: a type of defined contribution pension used by many employers at once, with independent trustees who look after the savings of every employee who is a member¹. If your employer has chosen it as its workplace pension, your money goes into the same scheme as the staff of other, unrelated employers, which is how a master trust aims to keep costs down through economies of scale².

A workplace pension is a way of saving for your retirement arranged by your employer, and in most cases your employer adds money into it as well as you². Some workplace pensions are called occupational, works, company or work-based pensions, and a master trust is one of those arrangements². Master trusts are reviewed by the regulator on an ongoing basis¹.

What follows covers how contributions and tax relief work, where the money is invested, how charges are taken, what happens if you opt out or change jobs, how to move other pensions in or out, when you can take the money, and how to complain if something goes wrong.

What the Lewis Workplace Pension Trust is

A master trust is a trust-based occupational pension scheme that serves multiple employers, who may be entirely unrelated to each other, in order to generate economies of scale². In practice that means your employer does not run its own pension scheme; it joins one that already looks after the savings of many workforces, and the trustees oversee the whole thing on behalf of all the members¹.

The scheme is a defined contribution arrangement, so what you get at retirement depends on how much has been paid in and how the investments have performed, not on a promise about your final income. Your employer must automatically enrol you into a pension scheme and make contributions if you are eligible for automatic enrolment⁵. Automatic enrolment has required employers to enrol eligible employees into a workplace pension since it was introduced in 2012³.

Your workplace pension belongs to you, even if you leave your employer in the future⁸. That is worth holding on to: when you change jobs your pension belongs to you, and it does not disappear or transfer automatically⁹.

How contributions work under automatic enrolment

Employees who earn more than £10,000 are automatically enrolled into a workplace pension unless they opt out³. Earning more than £10,000 a year, even by one penny, triggers enrolment if the other criteria are met⁴. If you earn more than £6,240 up to £10,000 a year and are aged over 16 but under 75, your employer will not automatically enrol you, but you have the right to join if you want, and you and your employer will both pay in⁴.

A percentage of your pay is put into the pension scheme automatically every payday². The pay that counts depends on the scheme rules and your contract, and can take in more than basic salary. While you are on paid leave, you and your employer continue making pension contributions, and the amount you contribute is based on your actual pay during that time⁹.

There is a timing quirk worth knowing about. Your employer can pay the first three months of contributions as a lump sum on the 22nd of the fourth month, and it can take up to three months for money to be paid into your pension⁵. So the money may reach the scheme later than your first payslip suggests.

Tax relief through a net pay arrangement

You may get tax relief from the government on your pension contributions². Under a net pay arrangement, your employer takes your pension contribution and the government's contribution as tax relief from your pay before deducting tax, and you pay tax on what is left¹¹. The effect is that you get all your tax relief automatically, without having to claim it¹².

That automatic route is simple, but it has a known wrinkle: because relief is given through the payroll, it depends on how much income tax you actually pay. Someone whose earnings sit below the income tax threshold gets less benefit from a net pay arrangement than from a scheme that adds basic rate relief at source. If you are in that position, it is worth checking how your scheme is set up.

Income tax relief on registered pension schemes covers net relief including relief on contributions, relief on investment returns, and tax paid in retirement, net of 25% of the lump sum in the relief calculation¹³. Being part of your workplace pension may also mean you benefit from an employer contribution as well as tax relief on the income tax you pay¹⁴.

Where your money is invested: the default fund and lifestyling

If you do nothing, your contributions go into the scheme's default investment option. In a master trust, that default is chosen by the trustees to suit the broad membership rather than any one person. Some schemes place your money automatically into a balanced profile unless you ask for it to be moved¹⁵.

Many workplace schemes use lifestyling, which shifts your investments gradually into lower-risk funds as you approach retirement. If you think an instruction about your investment choice has been missed, there is a route to challenge it. The Financial Ombudsman Service has upheld a complaint where a member asked to move his pension to a lower-risk fund and the provider failed to act, and it told the pension provider to treat the instruction to move his pension to his chosen lower-risk fund as though it had been received in the first phone call¹⁶.

You can usually change how your money is invested within the options the scheme offers, and you can normally choose a different retirement date if your plans change. The scheme's own member tools are the place to see the funds available and to make that choice.

How the charges work

Pension providers charge for starting and running a pension, and usually they take a percentage from your pension fund¹⁵. That means charges are deducted from the pot rather than billed to you separately, so they show up as a drag on growth rather than a line on a statement you pay.

The scale of charges across the market varies. Schemes charge, on average, around 0.3% on pension pots⁶. Some providers use a different structure entirely: Nest applies a contribution charge of 1.8% on each contribution, so for every £50 contributed, £49.10 is paid into the pension, while The People's Pension applies a fixed charge of £4.50¹. Those examples show the two main shapes a charge can take, a slice of each contribution or a flat amount, and a master trust may use either or a combination.

Lewis Workplace Pension Trust sets its own charges, and the exact figures for your scheme are on its own website and in the documents your employer gives you when you join. What matters for a reader is the structure: a percentage of the fund each year, a charge on each contribution, or a flat fee, and whether the employer negotiates a lower rate for its workforce.

Opting out and what happens afterwards

You can choose to opt out of a workplace pension⁸. Your employer has to tell you the start and end dates of the one-month opt-out period when you are automatically enrolled⁷. If you ask to leave within that month, your employer must let you leave the scheme and refund money you have paid⁵.

After the one-month window closes, opting out works differently. The money already paid in stays in the pension in your name, and you cannot usually take it back as cash before you reach the age the scheme allows. If you opt out and later change your mind, you can normally ask to rejoin, though your employer only has to re-enrol you automatically at its next re-enrolment date.

Some public service schemes have their own refund rules that differ from a master trust. In the Scottish Police pension scheme, if you leave within three months of being enrolled, your employer will automatically refund any contributions you have made, less deductions¹⁷. The Teachers' Pension Scheme allows a refund of contributions after leaving pensionable employment only if the member has less than two years' qualifying service¹⁸. These are different schemes with different rules, and they show why the terms of your own scheme matter.

Moving pensions in or out of the scheme

You can usually transfer other pensions into the scheme, and you can transfer your pot out to another provider. The process runs in a set order:

1. Check your current scheme allows transfers out.
2. Make sure you will not lose any benefits.
3. Decide which scheme to transfer into.
4. Check whether you need to pay for financial advice.
5. Ask your current provider for a transfer value.
6. Ask the new scheme to start the transfer¹⁹.

Transfers of defined contribution pots are subject to conditions that apply across the UK, under the statutory right to transfer in the Pension Schemes Act 1993⁶. Where a transfer is flagged as a possible scam risk, the scheme may ask for evidence of an employment link before it will proceed. That evidence can include:

• a letter from your employer
• a schedule of contributions or payment schedule
• payslips or other written evidence of pay
• copies of personal bank or building society statements, or a building society passbook, showing deposit of salary²⁰

Advice on transfers is not free. Independent financial advice on a transfer can often cost thousands of pounds¹⁹, and you will usually have to pay for the advice²³. A financial adviser should ask about the workplace pension scheme offered by your employer and whether you have been enrolled before suggesting a personal pension²⁴.

Taking your pension: retirement ages and death benefits

The exact age you can take your pension depends on the scheme rules⁹. The minimum pension age is 55, though you may still be able to take your pension before age 55 in certain circumstances, for example if you are unable to work due to ill health⁷. You can claim while working as long as you have reached the age agreed with your pension provider, if it is a personal or workplace pension²⁷.

Free guidance is available. Pension Wise appointments are open to people aged 50 or over, or under 50 if retiring early due to poor health, having inherited a pension, or if the scheme lets you take your pension before age 55, for a UK-based defined contribution pension²⁸. MoneyHelper offers webchat, WhatsApp or a phone call with a pension expert¹⁴.

On death benefits, in most cases the money will go to whoever is nominated, but organisations which run pension schemes are allowed to pay it to someone else if necessary⁹. Your workplace pension scheme will be run by administrators or trustees, and they are the ones who make that decision²⁴. Keeping your nomination form current is the practical step that matters.

Statements, value for money checks and member tools

Your scheme must keep you informed, and the pension scams leaflet is sent to members with their annual pension statement²⁵. Statements show what has been paid in, what it is worth and what you are being charged.

Value for money is now assessed formally for trust-based schemes. The Pensions Regulator plans to include Pledge compliance as an expected part of the scheme oversight and customer service Value for Money assessment for trust-based schemes, subject to consultation findings²⁶. The letter that goes to members about transfers is jointly signed by The Pensions Regulator, the FCA and the Money and Pensions Service²⁵.

Member tools are improving across the industry. The first pensions dashboard participant connected in March 2025, and on 17 April 2025 the first pension provider finalised connection to the ecosystem ahead of the first connect by date²⁹. Dashboards will eventually let you see your pensions in one place online.

If you are worried about your pension more generally, the Money and Pensions Service has found that nearly eleven million UK adults are too busy or confused to think about their pension¹⁴. Free help exists: MoneyHelper, and for Welsh language services, www.helpwrarian.org.uk¹⁴.

Complaints and how your pension is protected

Start with the scheme. If that does not resolve it, you can complain to MoneyHelper or the Pensions Ombudsman about how your workplace pension is managed³⁰. The Pensions Ombudsman deals with some complaints about the administration of workplace pensions³¹, and can look at complaints about the administration of personal and occupational pension schemes³². Its member guidance covers how to complain about a pension problem, common pension complaint topics, who can complain, and what the ombudsman can and cannot do, including overpayments, ill-health pensions, death benefits and incorrect pension information³³.

If your complaint is about your state pension, the Pension Service handles it³¹. If you are concerned that your employer is not complying with its pensions duties, or that contributions are missing, The Pensions Regulator is the body to contact³⁴. The regulator takes reports about a concern that relates to your workplace pension, including dishonesty or fraud in your workplace pension scheme, or significant concerns about how the scheme is being run³⁴. Reports can be made in confidence³⁴.

On protection, master trusts are subject to regular reviews by The Pensions Regulator¹. Complaints about how your workplace pension is managed can go to MoneyHelper or the Pensions Ombudsman³⁰. If you die, the Pension Tracing Service can be used to find details of a person's personal or workplace pension³⁶, and there is a service for reporting a death without telling each organisation separately³⁷.

For wider retirement planning, official guidance covers planning your retirement income³⁸, and if you are below state pension age you can contact the Future Pension Centre to find out whether you would benefit from paying voluntary contributions³⁹.