Mum can't get her full pension pot even though she hasn't taken anything

audi321

PM sent just now

xylophone

Barclays scheme does not revalue GMPat Fixed rate. They have used a combination of Fixed and Full methods.Apologies if you later correct yourself in the forthcoming 10 pages!

They certainly did revalue at fixed rate for deferred pensioners which MikeFloutier was and it was his case we were discussing. - see his post 17

My GMP portion (at Leaving) is stated to be, £1802 and it's also stated that this will be revalued at a fixed rate of 7% at GMP payment date.

See also the case of Mr Ainsworth who appealed to the Pensions Ombudsman because he did not understand the effect that FR revaluation would have on his state pension and indeed on increases to his Barclays pension.

You will need to type "Scheme - Pension Ombudsman Ainsworth into Google to pick this up. See below for quotes from the determination.


"The fixed rate revaluation (7% at the time) was not disclosed (although there was no requirement to do so under the Occupational Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 1996). At the time Mr Ainsworth retired, the Bank did not foresee that the GMP, revalued at 7% per annum, would grow at a faster rate than the AP, revalued by reference to the increase in national average earnings.

14. He irreversibly altered his position in 1996 when he accepted the offer of voluntary redundancy. The expectation of pension increases at RPI (possibly limited to 5%) was a fundamental part of his decision to accept redundancy. He feels it not fair to speculate what his position would have been, had he known the COD would increase at 7% per annum when the actual level of inflation at the time was much lower, he says he might well have taken up paid employment between his retirement and SPA to mitigate his loss. He says that he would have preferred to wait until 6 April 1997 (when the Bank stopped using the 7% fixed rate revaluation) before retiring."

audi321

I'm sure you're right about this particular case being 7% but what I was saying is that in the 1964 scheme they use a mixture of Fixed and Full revaluation of GMP.

i.e.
leavers post 1997 are revalued in line with NAE (Full)
leavers between 1993 & 1997 are 7% (Fixed)
etc

xylophone

As I said, we were discussing the case of MikeFloutier who became a deferred pensioner before 1997.

I also referred to the Ainsworth case in my posts in the MikeFloutier thread and I quote from it above

14. He irreversibly altered his position in 1996 when he accepted the offer of voluntary redundancy. The expectation of pension increases at RPI (possibly limited to 5%) was a fundamental part of his decision to accept redundancy. He feels it not fair to speculate what his position would have been, had he known the COD would increase at 7% per annum when the actual level of inflation at the time was much lower, he says he might well have taken up paid employment between his retirement and SPA to mitigate his loss. He says that he would have preferred to wait until 6 April 1997 (when the Bank stopped using the 7% fixed rate revaluation) before retiring."

hyubh

audi321 wrote: »

Sorry my mistake, when I said local authority schemes, I meant public sector pension schemes......you know what I meant come on!

The LGPS is a 'public sector pension scheme'. A claim that transfers out to a DC arrangement will likely be banned from DB schemes in general sounds much more credible if one assumes the LGPS is included in an already-announced ban for the same reason the LGPS is actually excluded from that ban.

xylophone

I meant public sector pension schemes......you know what I meant come on!

You might find

PENSIONS POLICY INSTITUTE
Occupational pension
provision in the
public sector


of interest - page 4 discusses funded and unfunded schemes.

See also http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/db-dc-transfers-conversions-consultation.pdf

agarnett

xylophone wrote:

See also http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov....nsultation.pdf

Thanks xylophone, you were discussing public sector now, but that document takes a very worrying stance generally, and we must be glad that the musings of such a careless document are not existing law, nor even guidance of it, or of future law. Sadly, such documents do masquerade as exactly that, and get taken for official guidance.

I have seen documents like this issued for other law-changing consultations in the past. They can be seriously misleading and give completely the wrong message to corporates who would wish to exploit every dot and iota from the moment such a document sees the light of day.

When the government announces swingeing rule changes unthinkingly and prematurely as it has done, it creates enormous risk swings which have to be managed by private sector DB pension schemes in particular.

That risk should not be borne by the pension scheme members who are the scheme beneficiaries. It is an environmental risk to those with the scheme liabilities. And if that risk is too big for the corporates, then it should be borne by taxpayers. Else the rule changes should never have been announced.

Part of my contribution to this thread already questions why there should be such major differences between CETV valuations in one scheme versus another when the member profiles and promised benefits are very similar. How can the cost of provision of the same benefits be assessed so differently? Discrepancies like that call into question the bona-fides of statutory tri-annual valuations of the whole scheme.

The past 12 months has uncovered long term deep-rooted fraud in the past accounting of at least one very long established UK household name blue chip, Britain's largest private employer. It is alleged that so-called professionals signed off on fraudulently misrepresented accounts over a long period, exposing a massive hidden shortfall.

Now, we know many private sector DB schemes are bigger businesses than the blue chips that created them. The contributions necessary to keep pension schemes afloat are amongst the employer's biggest unavoidable long term liabilities.

I fear some DB scheme liabilities are in many cases already massively understated aided by collusion with mixed bags of so-called "trustees" who at worst are corporate "ringers" and at best are well-intentioned but oh so confused independents. If I am right, there may already be serious fraud occurring even pre 6 April 2015.

This very dangerous "consultation document" starts with background statements like:

The impact of flexibilities on individual schemes will vary depending on their position but general issues that DB trustees, with their advisers, are likely to face include:

whether to commission a fresh assessment of the scheme’s funding position from the scheme actuary in light of the number of transfers and to consider the extent of the need for a reduction in transfer values due to funding levels.
...
greater interest from employers to promote such transfers to reduce their exposure to scheme risks
...
awareness of a heightened or changing risk of pension scams

The first and second of the three statements I have selected together actually invite fraud by trustees, actuaries and corporates.

The third deliberately wrongfoots members, and thereby completely fails to highlight that the biggest scamming risk to members is exactly where we are entitled least to expect it. It's the one where the government regulator's consultation document is condoning (and inviting further) trustees, corporates and actuaries to plot asset misappropriation fraud in the name of some completely corrupted idea of 'the greater good', given typical corporate culture refusal to cover the additional risk created by the rule changes.

That culture has clearly rubbed off on the author of the document.

This revelation should probably mean that given that lunatics are in charge of the asylum, we should instantly nationalise all UK pension funds, but because that is such a massive task to contemplate, what it actually means is individual survival of the only the fittest among us. Some of the fittest are of course running the corporates and the City of London for their own benefit and will do very nicely, and some of the rest of the fittest will not avoid the damage, but at least will have our eyes open and live to fight those who dared do it.

But the writing on the wall, if that consultation document is any clue, is that apathetic hoards of DB scheme members are about to be right royally ripped off in the name of the greater good as defined by corporate culture, and we know what that means in the UK.

Daniel54

agarnett wrote: »

The first and second of the three statements I have selected together actually invite fraud by trustees, actuaries and corporates.

They invite this conclusion only if you are wearing a tin foil hat which induces paranoid fantasies and conspiracy theories which you then feel the need to spew out on this board.

As you well know,there is ,quite rightly,not a snowball in hell's chance that a UK government is going to nationalise private sector DB schemes,nor indemnify them against shortfalls.

In which case,the paper seems eminently sensible,as does the guiding principle :-

"Trustees have a duty to act in the members’ best interests. When approaching transfers, they must balance the interests of both the members wishing to exercise their right to transfer with those that wish to remain in the scheme."

agarnett

What's the opposite of a tin foil hat? Brass balls I guess.

"Trustees have a duty to act in the members’ best interests. When approaching transfers, they must balance the interests of both the members wishing to exercise their right to transfer with those that wish to remain in the scheme."

Where did you get that? Oh yes, this consultation paper and nowhere in statute. Making up law on the hoof which acts as an apologist's leaning post for the wrongs that are about to be perpitrated?

Are you the author, Daniel54? Or could you easily have been?

We operate on the basis of "rule of law" in this country and that does not mean that we follow every damned stupid idea of some individual in government who fancies his own interpretation. Thank Goodness.

rpc

agarnett wrote: »

Where did you get that? Oh yes, this consultation paper and nowhere in statute.

Have you ever looked at trust law?

Trustee duties are pretty well established...