Civil Service pension

atush

If your income/outgoings are that tight, that just 1% or so can make or break you, you don't have enough wiggle room built into your retirement.

If all your savings are in cash, it might be a good idea to boost income by investing a portion for income.

eyeinthesky

Might this be a timing issue? I was ill health retired in 2003, and I too did not get the full increase for the first year. I think this was because I had a pay rise while working, which was dated November, and I retired on health grounds in February.
The date of my pension is always paid on the 22nd of the month, as this is the day of the month on which I was born, but yours doesn't seem to?
The annual increase is in April, but again, the amount you receive will possibly be less in April, due to the date your pension is paid.

moneyistooshorttomention

That bit of income won't "make or break me", but its an unexpected "confiscation" of a 3-figure amount of my income in Year 1 and will obviously have a knock-on effect in the rest of my retirement (as I don't get the cost-of-living rise on that missing Year 1 income).

I'd reached retirement age (ie I was 60 and a woman and that meant Retirement Age in my book still) and the job was very very wearing at an emotional level. It had really ground me down and that is something that I know most serving and former Civil Servants would instantly relate to and its difficult to explain to someone who hasn't had the range of "pressures" put on them that we are/were prior to retirement subject to. Suffice it to say that most of us look virtually unrecognisable some weeks after retirement because we look so much better with that "pressure" taken off us.

I'll manage if I have to...but I can see that it looks as if I am already dipping into my savings to "make up the difference" between expected and actual income. No-one tells us that they will try this little "trick" on us. We're wise to many of them (ie the "lets pay them only 5/7 of a week's salary if their last day with us is Friday" one....even though many of us don't work weekends anyway). Accordingly, most of us know we have to make our last day Monday-Thursday not to fall foul of that one...but this is a "little trick" I wasn't aware of..and cant really think how I could have avoided falling foul of it (maybe I should have postponed my retirement until the end of April....).

RichandJ

eyeinthesky wrote: »

Might this be a timing issue? I was ill health retired in 2003, and I too did not get the full increase for the first year. I think this was because I had a pay rise while working, which was dated November, and I retired on health grounds in February.
The date of my pension is always paid on the 22nd of the month, as this is the day of the month on which I was born, but yours doesn't seem to?
The annual increase is in April, but again, the amount you receive will possibly be less in April, due to the date your pension is paid.

OK (I'm sure atush was waiting for this). It's the RULES of the PENSION SCHEME that matter here, if they say you will only receive a part year increase then they are the only rules that matter.

It's got nothing to do with anything else.

Accept it, or be forever known as the person who didn't understand the rules.

It's got sod all to do with what you received whilst working.

Thrugelmir

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I'd reached retirement age (ie I was 60 and a woman and that meant Retirement Age in my book still)

That's very much your choice. You are fortunate that you are in a position to do so. If you had worked in the private I doubt that you would even be considering the option to retire at 60. I have one friend who is approaching 70 who still works part time. As all she has is state pension plus a meagre private pension.

Planning for retirement is the key.

hyubh

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

when in work and the income is "salary" then the yearly cost of living rise

The yearly what...?

Therefore...if the income is "pension" then it is equally the case that the yearly cost of living rise is due to be the same regardless of what time of year the person concerned retires.

It's due whenever the pension scheme rules says it's due...

Its not up to me (or anyone else) to be expected to take on a lower cost of living rise than due (even if it is only in Year 1) in order to subsidise the "paying organisation" (Capita in this case).

As the administrator, Capita won't be paid money to fund the pensions, and out if that, take a cut for themselves. Instead, they will have access to a government bank account to pay pensions from, and separate to that, receive a fee for themselves.

the query is whether Capita is or isn't liable to pay that full cost of living rise due in Year 1 OR can or cant get away with paying less than the Year 1 "cost of living rise" due

FWIW, the pro rating happens with the LGPS as well.

moneyistooshorttomention

So it does rather look as if even a person who had been on identical income to me prior to retirement and had identical "length of service" to me would receive a marginally different pension income in retirement to me if they had retired at a different time of year to me (ie down to receiving a different proportion of their Year 1 cost of living rise) and this anomaly would persist throughout our respective retirements?

Guess maybe this rule came up at the time when all public sector employees got their annual cost of living rise each year....rather than the current position (ie that many of them have had a payfreeze for the last few years). Back when we all had this yearly salary rise, then our last (in work) cost of living rise would be a different length of time away from our retirement date (maybe days...maybe months). As that no longer applies, then the pro rata thing on Year 1 pension accordingly should no longer apply (as it must have been done to "balance out" the differing length of time since last salary cost of living rise that different employees would have had).

The Civil Service is very "slow moving" and hence I guess the reason that an apparently outdated rule is still in place (that and the fact it suits them because it saves them money at our expense).

atush

I know this is all minutia. Which is why it is frustrating and disappointing for you (ie the whole minutia bit). I do get that. Thinking you'll get a, but ending up with A-B. After my father died, my mother was forced to give back a large portion of his Pension as it had been paid in advance and he didn't live the month out. Was a bit of a shock for her.

But I truly feel, if this amt of 3 figures, less than 1K is going to impact you that severely I would have deferred my SP for a year to get that 10.4% uprating which would perhaps have closed the gap. AS you clearly don't have enough wiggle room for these contingencies in your planning. That or a small part time job that fit in with your life.

The whole point about retirement planning (and which I am having a diffictul job to judge myself) is the Number ie the amt you need to live on, which should be covered plus contingency before you actually retire.

hyubh

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

The Civil Service is very "slow moving" and hence I guess the reason that an apparently outdated rule is still in place (that and the fact it suits them because it saves them money at our expense).

At the risk of sounding blunt, if it weren't quite so slow-moving, you wouldn't have benefited from an unfunded, defined benefit pension scheme with nominal employee contribution rates in the first place.