Teachers pension terrible customer service

Flower4156

My husband was 65 on 31 January. He is a teacher at the academy.
He was made redundant from his school in August 2014 and had to take a break for more than a month in order to get some redundancy money which he is still waiting for. He had numerous phone calls to Teachers pension regarding his situation and for their advice about when best to take pension. He was given very conflicting and confusing advice that his best three years from the last 10 years before retirement will drop off in September 2015, that his salary is not index linked, that he can freeze his pension from August 2013 if he wanted, that correct figures for his salary of reference are only on their website. On the basis of it he decided to accept a full time contract from the academy as a teacher and retire while still working when he is 65. It is only now when he started to apply for his pension- he found out that as he had a break in September 2014-he should have retired back then, his salary of reference on the website was incorrect, his best years dropped off last September . They will backdate his pension benefits to September. They admitted that their customer service advisers gave incorrect information on a number occasions and called it training issues. He is devastated now as he is on a full time contract until August 2015. On the basis of the wrong information given to him by TP he made irreversible desicions. What will happen regarding abatement? What is going to happen to his pension? He possibly be better off not to bother working but retire last year. He just lost both his parents after looking after them for almost 10 years. He is devastated. Any thoughts about this terrible situation he is in now?

xylophone

https://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/members/the-scheme/retired-teacher/returning-to-work.aspx

The above may clarify.

Why is his situation terrible?

System

As a teacher who has contacted the TPS always finding them helpful I am a little confused by your post.
Your husband's redundancy payment has nothing to do with the TPS but is the responsibility of the school. If his redundancy took effect from August 2014 it should have been paid fairly soon after the redundancy took effect.
He must have known about the redundancy earlier in the year and should have then applied for his pension to also commence from September 1st 2014. He could of course have chosen to defer it but I cannot see the point of doing so if his NPA was 60. Did he by chance join the profession after 2007 when, for new entrants, NPA was raised to 65?
Did he take up a new post at his former school or somewhere else? After redundancy and retirement this may have been under a new contract. It is extremely unusual for a school to make a teacher redundant and then give them a new contract a month later. Some teachers may decide to take early retirement and may then be given a new contract after a day's break in service. However in most cases these tend to be part-time and temporary. Furthermore you are then starting afresh and paying towards a new separate pension. Previous rights to do with length of service etc.. would also have ended.
I am not sure what you mean by freezing his pension in August 2013 when he was still working. I am also unsure what is meant by his salary not being index linked or did you mean his pension?
Teacher's pensions are linked to CPI.
I have also never heard of pension benefits being back dated.
Maybe in your anxiety you have confused dates and procedures.
Part of me is impressed that if his NPA is 60 he has continued to work until 65 but of course I am unaware of your personal circumstances.
Please could you also clarify what you mean by irreversible decisions? The only one I know about is the decision how whether or not to commute some of your pension to enhance the lump sum.
Is the situation as terrible as you seem to suggest?
Personally I would be more concerned about the non-payment of the redundancy. I think the situation around your husband's pension is probably not so dire.

Flower4156

TP advised him that all would ok to retire Sept 2015 throughout all of 2014 on the 3 best years in 10. However he had a letter out ofthe blue on 31 December stating that everything they said was now not true. They blamed it on 'training issues' of their staff...no apologies at all. Also they said that they checked the contributions from lea only now after 17 years part of their 'quality assurance', and found that the lea had over estimated contributions. He works v long hours and trust the TP to do their job and advise him of correct facts, but they just dismiss their mistakes as 'training issues' .
Moral of this for others: don't believe what you are told by TP. Pay for advice or do it all yourself ... Incidently the NUT were singularly unhelpful as well.

jem16

Flower4156 wrote: »

TP advised him that all would ok to retire Sept 2015 throughout all of 2014 on the 3 best years in 10. However he had a letter out ofthe blue on 31 December stating that everything they said was now not true.

This part doesn't make sense. The rules state that the pension is calculated on the average of the best 3 years (revalued) out of the last 10 years - this isn't something that can just be changed.

Did your husband become a deferred member when he left in August 2014 and then rejoin when he started teaching again? Normally with a break of just one month you would be eligible to rejoin the scheme you just left.

They blamed it on 'training issues' of their staff...no apologies at all. Also they said that they checked the contributions from lea only now after 17 years part of their 'quality assurance', and found that the lea had over estimated contributions.

That's probably not the TPS's fault. Each year the LEA should send details of their employee's contributions to the TPS. Each year your husband should also have received a benefit statement - what happened to them and did your husband not notice any problem with his length of service at that point?

He works v long hours and trust the TP to do their job and advise him of correct facts, but they just dismiss their mistakes as 'training issues' .

Some of what you are saying doesn't make a lot of sense. Have you any figures from the TPS of what your husband thought he was getting and what they say he should now be getting?

System

It is not the role of the Teachers' Pensions to advise on Financial matters. Although I agree they should be informing accurately.
As far as the LEA are concerned have they deducted the wrong pension contributions from your husband's salary or is it something to do with the employers contributions?(i.e. those from the LEA) As a result is the forecast pension lower than expected? Have other teachers working for that LEA also been affected? It does seem a strange situation.
We all work long hours but I am afraid that is not a sufficient reason for not keeping oneself informed and up to date with pension arrangements.
What you need to do now is come up with a plan for dealing with the situation rather than just venting ones anger.
As I said before you need to chase the redundancy payment. You will have to talk to TP and find a way forward. For the vast majority of people the pension arrangements go well. I think your husband also needs to take some responsibility for this situation. It doesn't just happen.

hyubh

Flower4156 wrote: »

Also they said that they checked the contributions from lea only now after 17 years part of their 'quality assurance', and found that the lea had over estimated contributions. He works v long hours and trust the TP to do their job and advise him of correct facts,

If the employer provided incorrect data to the pension administrator, then the employer is the main culprit, not the administrator.

Moral of this for others: don't believe what you are told by TP. Pay for advice

I doubt a financial advisor would have picked up the incorrect payroll data being used to be honest.

That said... if your husband genuinely believes there has been maladministration that led him to make bad financial decisions, he should raise a formal complaint. While I am not wholly sure TP are actually at fault here, given what you've reported about them admitting 'training issues' I'd definitely raise it with TP in the first instance (in the jargon, a 'stage one IDRP' complaint).

For reference, you might also want to have a read of vaguely similar cases taken to the Pensions Ombudsman - search for 'abatement' on the Ombudsman's site and there comes up several TPS cases:

https://www.pensions-ombudsman.org.uk/our-decisions/?s=abatement

Flower4156

Thanks for all your replies. Yes we know that we have to move on with the situation. Tp quoted completely different figures on their website ( we never had statement by post) all along up until now. They are currently blaming LEA for it. They reassured that my husband will be OK until August 2015 to retire with the same pension benefits as on the website. It was only after our complaint in Decemebr when they informed my husband that his pension benefits will start from September 2014. Obviously by Decemeber 2014 he was on a new full time contract with a different school. The most he is worried now is that even though that he did not receive any penny of his pension benefits up to the time of writing, at no fault of his own, he will be most probably a subject to abatement rules for this financial year if the backdate his pension.

jem16

hyubh wrote: »

For reference, you might also want to have a read of vaguely similar cases taken to the Pensions Ombudsman - search for 'abatement' on the Ombudsman's site and there comes up several TPS cases:

Surely abatement only applies in the case of a retired teacher who has actually commenced his/her pension, returning to teaching?

As far as I read it the OP is only now applying for his pension.

jem16

Flower4156 wrote: »

Tp quoted completely different figures on their website ( we never had statement by post) all along up until now.

Is this through My Pension Online - ie logging into his own actual pension benefits? Or is it something else you mean like just using the calculators on the TPS website?

They are currently blaming LEA for it. They reassured that my husband will be OK until August 2015 to retire with the same pension benefits as on the website.

Did your husband rejoin the TPS when he started his new contract?

It was only after our complaint in Decemebr when they informed my husband that his pension benefits will start from September 2014.

That sounds very much like he became a deferred member when he left in August 2014. So did he?

Obviously by Decemeber 2014 he was on a new full time contract with a different school. The most he is worried now is that even though that he did not receive any penny of his pension benefits up to the time of writing, at no fault of his own, he will be most probably a subject to abatement rules for this financial year if the backdate his pension.

If he became a deferred member his pension would be calculated from his date of leaving in September 2014 and then revalued with CPI when he actually takes the pension. It would not normally be backdated - have you got that in writing?

Flower4156

Yes he rejoined TP after he started a new contract in October. They say now that from that time he will need to apply for short term annuity. Yes the pension benefits were shown after he logged in on TP account, not calculators. As far as we know he never been classed as deferred member. They confirmed in writing that his pension benefits will be paid from September 2014. So where are we with abatement now.