Trustees powers to reduce benefits!

pdx123

Thankyou for all your responses.
I did understand that early retirement was always subject to "the company giving its consent" but having been in the scheme for so long & devoted over 3/4 of my working life to the company, I thought that the 'consent' would be a formality....how wrong can you be. Looks like I'll have to wait until I'm 65 ( that's if I live that long) to see the benefit...hopefully the scheme won't go bust in the meantime!
It does seem that the trustees have the power to virtually do what they like....
Thanks again.

Debt_Free_Chick

pdx123 wrote:

It does seem that the trustees have the power to virtually do what they like....
Thanks again.

Not just on a willy-nilly basis. They would have to have good reason for doing so as they are only guardians' of the scheme, for the benefit of the members. Perhaps they have made the early retirement benefits less generous in order to strengthen the financial security of the scheme? You should get a formal announcement explaining the changes and the name of someone to contact, if you have any questions.

And there is nothing to prevent the employer making a special payment to the scheme to fund extra early retirement benefits for individual members, so perhaps some negotiation with your manager or HR manager might be fruitful?

I think you need to find out more and ask more questions to fully appreciate the whole position.

HTH