Civil Service Widow Benefit/Divorce query

gwenspugs

I am hoping one to be able to garner some advice for a friend, please. Retired from Civil Service in 1990 (aged early 52) and received a lump sum due to no dependants (we think) Married in 1996, and was advised he had to repay £8k so there was a death benefit available to his widow, should the worse happen. This was being repaid first at £20 per month from pension, and then at £30.

Separated 2006, but not divorced till 2016. (No financial/support involved in divorce).

He has queried with the pension department if he has to continue paying back the £8k, as now has no death benefit recipient and has been told that he must carry on paying. On pushing the person on the phone has told him he can appeal this - but nothing has been put in writing.

I am pretty clueless about pensions in general and Civil Service ones in particular, it would seem common sense to me that at least some sort of pro-rata calculation should be made and the pay back ended when the period covered by the marriage/benefit possibility has ended. Can anyone give me a clue if we are barking up the wrong tree or advise on how to proceed and what to expect? Many thanks in expectation.

Kynthia

It sounds like he got a refund of his WPS contributions (widows pension) for being unmarried. Is he in the Classic scheme?

I don't know the ins and outs but it's probably worth writing a letter to MYCSP (if he is in the civil service pension scheme) to clarify the position. I do know that seperation is irrelevant and what matters is when you married and when you divorced. There will also be info on the Classic scheme on the civil service pensions website.

gwenspugs

Thanks for reply, I'm going to write to the pension scheme for him and see what we can actually learn in black and white, rather than just the phone call "computer says no" response.

I appreciate it is the date of marriage/divorce which will be relevant, if we are on the right track. Don't know which scheme he is on - I did google CPS websites, but the amount of info was boggling and pretty hard to understand.

xylophone

http://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/media/181385/ycpbe-april16-v1.pdf

There may be some information in the Appendix p 23.

OldBeanz

1. There was an article in the Guardian in February suggesting "Three-quarters of civil service pension records are wrong or missing”
http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2016/feb/11/mycsp-government-pension-scheme-civil-service
2. “The Data Protection Act 1998, Section 7” allows you to ask for all your information held by MyCSP.

Before querying this and admitting anything I would be writing to them asking for the data held on your ex.
He will almost certainly be in the classic scheme.
You never know you may be giving them more information than necessary and perhaps not helping your cause.
While not an expert in this area, if you married for a day while in the scheme you would receive no rebate. I would suspect that the money would have to be repaid.
Good luck.

Kynthia

It's unusual for anyone to have to repay funds when marrying after retirement, plus being able to retire before 55 is unusual unless it was a redundancy buy - out or an ill health retirement. However 1990 was quite a while ago so maybe things have changed.

It's worth reading up on the Classic scheme and getting what info you can from MYCSP.

OldBeanz

Kynthia wrote: »

It's unusual for anyone to have to repay funds when marrying after retirement, plus being able to retire before 55 is unusual unless it was a redundancy buy - out or an ill health retirement. However 1990 was quite a while ago so maybe things have changed.

It's worth reading up on the Classic scheme and getting what info you can from MYCSP.

Up until 2010 in the CS, if you reached 53 and 8 months and were made redundant then they made your pension into the equivalent of retiring at 60. So there was provision for retiring early.
If you had never married you had your Widows pension contributions refunded (if this was not unique to the CS from what I have read on here it is very unusual).
On marriage repaying the Widows pension contributions would have ensured a valuable pension for any widow and I believe was mandatory.
Having been married I reckon he will be due to pay the money but MyCSP should give a more definitive position as the major review of 2001 changed many of these more obscure features.

BobQ

Old Beanz is correct.

My relative was a civil servant and in those days it was not uncommon for them to want to encourage people to leave. Medical retirement in his case but they also allowed people to voluntarily leave under schemes to reduce numbers. It was an excellent deal involving up to 6 and 2/3 years enhancement and immediate payment. (Some parts of local government still have such terms).

In Classic the rules allow for repayment of what was then called the widows and orphans contribution (now called WPS). At that time there was no employee contributions in the civil service but from about 1972 they introduced a 1.5% of salary WPS. If you retired unmarried you got a refund of the contributions plus interest if you were unmarried but on the understanding that it was repaid should you subsequently marry. I think that this is what has happened to the OP's friend.

I believe that these days those retiring in the Classic Scheme (which is being phased out) get the refund of WPS contributions but do not have to repay them if they marry. Instead the refund is reduced to pay an insurance premium to cover the situation when you later re-marry.

I agree with Old B worth asking but it is unlikely that a further refund would be paid as he has had the benefit.

Kynthia

As i suspected things were different then as now you wouldn't have to repay any WPS contributions if you married as an amount is held back to cover this.

If you are over 50 and made redundant you have the option to use your redundancy payment to buy - out the actuarial reduction in your pension, and the employer will top-up the amount if your redundancy isn't sufficient to do this. Although I'm not sure everyone taking this option where i am realises that pension indexing doesn't apply until 55.

BobQ

Kynthia wrote: »

As i suspected things were different then as now you wouldn't have to repay any WPS contributions if you married as an amount is held back to cover this.

That is why the OP needs to ask MyCSP because people who left in 1990 had some differences in the terms often including some reserved rights.

If you are over 50 and made redundant you have the option to use your redundancy payment to buy - out the actuarial reduction in your pension, and the employer will top-up the amount if your redundancy isn't sufficient to do this. Although I'm not sure everyone taking this option where i am realises that pension indexing doesn't apply until 55.

There is a danger that by talking about what happens now you confuse the issue since the OP's friend would not be covered by the current redundancy terms. In 1990 there were different redundancy terms.

gwenspugs

Thank you so much everyone for the info. Yes, he was offered early retirement at 52 - it was offered to people of his CS rank at that age, at that time, with enhanced benefits.

Having read the comments about it being unlikely he will get any refund of his £8k due to having benefitted from the fact the widows benefit was in place I can see the sense of the argument, but am not getting this through to him:) However we have written off to the Pension Scheme admin to get an written answer, and can then see if there is anyway to take it further.