Quick Question - My mother's pension

SeekTruth

As others have said, get the official state pension forecast. This will tell you at least three things of importance:

1. The number of years contribution earned/credited to date
2. Her entitlement under the current scheme, earned to date
3. The date she will become entitled to the pension (you can also find this out from the link provided by Torry Quine)

From what you've said there is unlikely to be much Additional Pension, so her entitlement is likely to be 1/30 of £107.45 per year of contributions, or perhaps just a little more.

At transition to the new Single Tier Scheme (currently expected to be 6 April 2016) her Foundation Amount (initial entitlement under the new scheme) will be the greater of the following:

1. Her entitlement under the existing scheme
2. 1/35 of £144 per year of contributions (capped at 35 years). If your mother was ever Contracted Out then there would be a deduction from this.

For someone with, say, 18 years of contributions and no Additional Pension or Contracted Out service the first calculation would give £64ish per week and the second would give £74ish per week. So, if these calculations applied to your mother she would enter the Single Tier Scheme with a Foundation Amount of £74ish per week. Each year of contributions after that date would increase this amount by 1/35 of £144 (£4.11) per week up to a maximum of £144 per week.


There are two aspects that I do not pretend to understand and could have a significant impact on these figures:

1. What, if any, credit is given for a spouse's contributions
2. Whether the number of years contributions regarded as earned under the new scheme will necessarily be the same as that under the current scheme

Hope this helps

xylophone

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmworpen/writev/1000/m11.htm - derived rights
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/single-tier-pension-impact-assessment.pdf-p 13 - presumably we wait to hear about the "transitional arrangements".