Civil Service redundancy - marked time

Lyncroft

Hello

They are running a voluntary redundancy scheme where I work. I put in for an estimate but I don't really trust them to get anything right where I work so does anyone know that if you're on marked time, should that be taken into account when they work out what the redundancy payment should be? For my estimate they've used the basic salary and not counted the marked time element?

I'm a bit strapped for time in finding out so thought I'd post here on the off chance.

Thanks in advance.

MyRubyRed

Perhaps check with PCS? Unsure whether marked time qualifies in calculation but thought it was based on highest salary over a given period of years?

wookie999

hi
Pretty sure theres been some changes in cs redundancy threasholds, i read at work from memory payouts have been capped at around no more than 50 thousand, im back at work soon so i will double check, i could be completley wrong though, but like all goverment departments ther slashing everything at this time.

B.E.N

The proposed changes to the Compensation Scheme for voluntary redundancies don't kick in until 1st April (e.g. if deal is finalised before then, you'll be treated by the current rules).

Read all about the changes here:

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/cscs/faq-cscs.cfm

Lyncroft

Thank you all for your replies.

I rechecked my payslip and I reckon my estimate does include the mark time element. Now I just need to decide whether to take it. Deadline is Tuesday. Comes out as a nice lump sum of £40k.

Very difficult decision. The thing hanging over my head is that in the near future they may relocate me to Milton Keynes (I'm in London) and no way do I want that. At the moment I can't get any more information from them. The other thing to bear in mind is the new terms coming in after April. I've had another look at that and noticed some interesting things, such as their plans to be allowed to move people from dept to dept to cover over and understaffing. I can see things getting pretty unpleasant over the next few years.

Hithere

Lyncroft wrote: »

Thank you all for your replies.

I rechecked my payslip and I reckon my estimate does include the mark time element. Now I just need to decide whether to take it. Deadline is Tuesday. Comes out as a nice lump sum of £40k.

Very difficult decision. The thing hanging over my head is that in the near future they may relocate me to Milton Keynes (I'm in London) and no way do I want that. At the moment I can't get any more information from them. The other thing to bear in mind is the new terms coming in after April. I've had another look at that and noticed some interesting things, such as their plans to be allowed to move people from dept to dept to cover over and understaffing. I can see things getting pretty unpleasant over the next few years.

Good luck, yes really hard decision that only you can make.
Need to take into account your age, how likely you are to be able to get another job in the future, what your financial commitments are and how long you could make £40k if you didn't get another job for a while.
On the other side would you be happy if you stayed or would you end up leaving anyway in the end (with nothing) if they were pushing you around all over the place.

dampsquib

Other things to think about:
Only the first £30,000 of the compensation payment will be tax free. You'll pay 20% on the rest (but no NIC). Anyone sailing close to being a 40% rate taxpayer, might end up paying tax at 40% on some of the payment instead (made more likely as we are in the latter part of the Tax Year).
In any future employment, your unlikely to find a pension scheme which will be as good as the Civil Service scheme (although I expect the attacks on the CS scheme will intensify in years to come).
Having gone for redundancy, you be eligible for contribution based Jobseekers Allowance for 6 months (though it does come with a fair amount of hassle!).
Good luck with your tough decision!

Lyncroft

Hi

Yes, really tough call. I'm 45 and have done 19 years. I could probably get by for a while on 40k (not in the high tax bracket), I rent so don't have a mortgage. I'm in London so could probably pick something up - not sure what though! As far as I can see it's only going to get more uncomfortable. A possible scenario is they relocate me to Milton Keynes (pay my train fare about 8k! for a year or so then I'm on my own). Or they give me the choice of relocation or voluntary redundancy under the new terms, eg, possibly not much! You're right about the pension too. It is good but as you say I can see that coming under attack though maybe just for new starters.

Anyway, thanks for all your advice. Early start for me - off to Milton Keynes!