Retiring early - Civil Service

evergreen

I am thinking of taking partial retirement from the civil serive at 58 - taking my pension (which will be reduced by 10% for early retirement), but cutting my hours to about 20 a week. This may be worth while as I had temporary promotion a year or so ago so my pension will be based on that. What I don't know is I am buying 5 years pension, which I should carrying on paying for until I'm 60. So how would me taking my pension early affect that? Would appreciate any advice.

sleepless_saver

While you worked, you would just carry on contributing for your added years. Taking the pension wouldn't make a difference. I assume it would take you longer to accumulate the same number of additional years as you would be working part time so the additional contribution would reduce in proportion to the hours you actually work. See leaflet on Civil Service Pensions website.

Andy_L

You added years will be reduced pro-rata by the number of years you go early, eg if you were buying your 5 added years over 10 years of employment, as you retire 2 years early you've only paid for 8 yeras so get 8/10ths of 5 extra years = 4 extra years.

You need to leave within 2 years of your temporary promotion ending for the extra salary to count in full for pension purposes (assuming that temporary promotion is pensionable, I think it depends which version of promotion you got). However that's probably only 7.5-10% extra, so just about makes up for the early reduction penalty. As against that you can't accumulate more pension whilst receiving the CS pension so you miss out on 2 more years service & 2 years of final salary increase.

As you are halving your hours you wont suffer from abatment & will receive your pension in full.