'Lost' Civil Service pension

julieswansea

Hi.

I'm an ex-Civil Servant trying to locate my PCPS pension.

I joined the Civil Service in Feb 1980, working at DVLA. After about 2 years I moved from there (on promotion) to the Home Office Prison Dept. And I moved from there (again on promotion) to ONS (which was then known as BSO and was part of DTI. Subsequently BSO became CSO and then ONS). I left ONS in June 1995 to take up employment outside of the Civil Service.

Having recently turned 50 and with some changes afoot in my current workplace I decided to try to track down my pension and to determine when it would pay out, what the likely benefits would be, whether I could take any of these early, etc..

After some investigation, I believe that Capita Hartshead look after pensions for ex-Civil Servants. But Capita Hartshead have no details of me or my pension. They referred me to PPPA, who apparently look after pensions for ONS.

Initially PPPA thought thay had tracked down my pension, still at ONS. But they have have now written to me saying this was a mistake (another person with the same name), and that they cannot trace my pension. They suggested I should maybe try via the Home Office pensions administrator (but I'm sure that service was transferred with me to ONS) or that I should try the Pension Tracing Service.

The Pension Tracing Service say they would only be able to provide details on the scheme and administrator - and since I already know it was PCPS and is administered by Capita Hartshead this is of little help. They suggested I contact the Inland Revenue who would be able to confirm (or not!) membership and dates.

The Inland Revenue have verbally confirmed my membership of PCPS from 1 February 1980 - 2 June 1995, and will write confirming this.

But what do I do when I get their letter? Who should I forward it to?

Has anyone else had a similar experience???? Help, please!


(Apologies for this long post, but I'm new to this site, so not sure how much detail to put in and what I should leave out!)

NAR

Any chance that Capita Hartshead have put your details under the "other person with the same name" identified by PPPA? Or that ONS have made this mistake themselves - thought your record was a duplicate and deleted your details?

julieswansea

It's got worse...

Having spoken to PPPA again it seems one likely explanation is that CSO's HR Dept didn't notify the Paymaster General of my 'preserved pension' status back in 1995.

But ONS have advised PPPA that they have no record of me having worked in ONS/CSO, so PPPA are going to go back to ONS again to ask what happened to all the old CSO records in case something got mislaid when CSO became ONS.

In the meantime I have to try to dig out any documents that prove my employment dates amd pay scales, etc. - apparently the letter from the Revenue won't be enough. If I can't prove I worked there and am entitled to the pension then that's it apparently - it seems the onus is on me to prove my employment as well as my contributions - and apparently that stance is a cabinet directive!

As it happens I am a bit of a hoarder, so I may have some papers somewhere, but the situation seems ubelievable - how many people have got pay slips etc from 20 years ago?!

Is there anybody that oversees pensions administration (like an ombudsman)? And if so, do they oversee public pensions too, or just private pensions?