LGPS 3 tier pension retirement

Vulcan24v

Hi, I am now 55 and a few years ago I used to work for the Local authority in schools. My school became an Academy, funded by a large benefactor.
Anyway at work one day I collapsed and regained consciousness with a lot of worried people around me, it transpired that I had had a TIA and I was off work for about a year. I have lost my short term memory so that anything asked of me will disappear within seconds and I have no recollection of the conversation, my high blood pressure which caused the incident is now under control with daily medication for the rest of my life but the memory problem remains.

The school I worked at (as an ICT Tech) was worried that during the course of my duties I might forget to do something, at exam times this could mean forgetting to enter a pupil for an exam with corresponding problems so they decided to send me for tests.
After a battery of tests and a sheaf of reports an inch thick they decided to let me go, the decision was Tier 3 of the pension scheme with a lump sum and a very small monthly payment.

I am now 2 years and 3 months into this and I have no idea what will happen at the end of the three years, I am absolutely sure that the short term memory problem is just the same as the day they awarded the pension as I can leave the house to go shopping for a small list of things and unless I have written it down I WILL come back with nothing as my brain never digs up what I actually wanted.

Is this pension covered by this new regulation coming April that I keep hearing about where you can take out your pension pot if you so wish? I have no real worries about leaving anything in for a pension as the monthly amount I get now is so small as to negligible to our finances, plus my partner is a lot younger than I am and is earning a decent salary with her own pension contributions and will probably still be working for the next twenty years.
I'd prefer to take whatever is left and if it's a reasonable amount use it to sort the house etc so that it is all done for our kids when they eventually inherit.

jem16

Vulcan24v wrote: »

Is this pension covered by this new regulation coming April that I keep hearing about where you can take out your pension pot if you so wish?

No It's not. The LGPS is a Defined Benefit pension and doesn't have a pension pot. The only way to have achieved this would have been to transfer away from the LGPS and you would have got a good deal less than you are getting now.

hyubh

Vulcan24v wrote: »

My school became an Academy, funded by a large benefactor.

Mostly irrelevant for your own pension purposes - when the TUPE happened you would have been classed as having continuous membership (assuming the academy conversion happened while you were still employed).

After a battery of tests and a sheaf of reports an inch thick they decided to let me go, the decision was Tier 3 of the pension scheme with a lump sum and a very small monthly payment.

Tier 3 is the lowest, and usually stops after three years, on which the pensioner goes back to being deferred (assuming they haven't reached their normal pension age). Perhaps there's the argument you should be assessed for tier 2 however - see the Merseyside fund's summary:

http://mpfmembers.org.uk/content/ill-health-retirement

The Regulations are the same for all funds.

Is this pension covered by this new regulation coming April that I keep hearing about where you can take out your pension pot if you so wish?

No. Firstly you're drawing it, and secondly it's a DB not a DC pension (and moreover, an ill health DB pension).

I'd prefer to take whatever is left

As a DB scheme there is no individual 'pot' assigned to you. You are currently getting an ill health pension because that's just part of the benefit package for being a member of the LGPS.

Vulcan24v

So it seems that after the three years are up I'm back into the employment pot even though with my affliction I would be unable to perform in any job of the calibre I had previously held... pushing trolleys at ASDA maybe?
Seems a tad harsh, I still now get the rising panic of "have I forgotten something" when asked to do simple tasks, the medication keeps the blood pressure in check so I won't collapse anymore but it can't stop the panic.
I have been told by my partner that my previous employers said there would be a review at 18 months but I still haven't heard anything, I suppose my next course of action is to ask my previous employer where the review is?

hyubh

Vulcan24v wrote: »

So it seems that after the three years are up I'm back into the employment pot even though with my affliction I would be unable to perform in any job of the calibre I had previously held... pushing trolleys at ASDA maybe?

I suggest cutting back on the emotion and instead just look at the facts of the LGPS' ill health criteria as I suggested, which don't, oddly enough, speak of 'pushing trolleys at ASDA'.

I suppose my next course of action is to ask my previous employer where the review is?

Contact the pension administrators rather than the school. Typically this will be the pensions section of the county council.

Vulcan24v

hyubh wrote: »

I suggest cutting back on the emotion and instead just look at the facts of the LGPS' ill health criteria as I suggested, which don't, oddly enough, speak of 'pushing trolleys at ASDA'.



Contact the pension administrators rather than the school. Typically this will be the pensions section of the county council.

Thanks for that, I do tend to be slightly emotionally involved with something that affects the rest of my life. From my point of view it appears that I am expected to get myself a job if they think I do not fit the criteria, that fills me with a panic I can't properly describe.

The initial assessments of my condition were carried out face to face by OH people but the final decision on which tier to set me at was done by someone I had never even met who was assessing my condition from the reports. It didn't feel quite fair.

I will contact the pension administrators and the school to find out where the review is.

hyubh

Vulcan24v wrote: »

From my point of view it appears that I am expected to get myself a job if they think I do not fit the criteria, that fills me with a panic I can't properly describe.

You have not really looked at the actual criteria - that was my point. That said, I wouldn't feel too hard done by, firstly because the ASDA trolley pusher you find so beneath your station probably doesn't enjoy the protections of LGPS-style ill health cover like you do, and secondly because if you asked for a reassessment against tier two terms you may actually get them.

Vulcan24v

hyubh wrote: »

You have not really looked at the actual criteria - that was my point. That said, I wouldn't feel too hard done by, firstly because the ASDA trolley pusher you find so beneath your station probably doesn't enjoy the protections of LGPS-style ill health cover like you do, and secondly because if you asked for a reassessment against tier two terms you may actually get them.

Thanks I will ask for re-assessment as you say, it wasn't that pushing trolleys was beneath me, the example was that it was the only job I could probably be considered for given my pre-disposition to forgetting what task I have been given. If there is only one task I'm unlikely to forget what I was sent to do... seems a bit of a shame considering my skills in the job I did (ICT Tech) My last few weeks in my old job I was constantly found wandering the corridors hoping that my brain would actually tell me what I had set out to go and do. I did to resort to a small notebook but the nature of the job meant that some things couldn't be done at the time I got to them and I had to come back, which of course I never did.
All my life I prided myself on being reliable but in the last few months I was anything but...