NHS Pensions in England and Scotland

Ian6411

My wife has 2 scheme pensions with the NHS, 1 in England where she worked for 12 years and which allows her to retire at 60; Another in Scotland where she currently works but where the normal retirement date is now 67. She did not exercise her right to transfer her England scheme benefits to the Scottish scheme within the first 12 months and so they are both held separate.


Will she be able to claim the NHS England pension at age 60 while continuing to contribute to the Scottish scheme until she retires at age 67?


We can't find any documentation relating to this.

jem16

Ian6411 wrote: »

Will she be able to claim the NHS England pension at age 60 while continuing to contribute to the Scottish scheme until she retires at age 67?

As they are held separately then yes. The administrators are different with the SPPA dealing with the Scottish scheme and NHSBSA in England.

You mention NRD of 67 for the Scottish scheme. Remember that this will only be for service from April 2015 when the CARE scheme started. Anything before that keeps the NRD date of the scheme she was in - which one is it? I'd guess it was the 2008 scheme.

Ian6411

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, she is in the 2008 scheme.


Am I right in thinking that delaying retirement after the NRD will not result in any increase to the eventual pension amount as a result of being paid for a shorter period? If so, she would definitely need to claim benefits at NRD in each of the schemes to which she belongs or effectively lose out?


At the risk of hijacking my own thread. We had a lengthy exchange with NHS pensions a couple of years ago which was never satisfactorily resolved from my perspective. My wife works part-time and took a role for an additional day per week for 3 years. She paid superannuation on the additional earnings but her pension continued to accrue benefits only on her other role. We raised queries with the pension department suggesting that if the extra work was not pensionable then she should not be paying superannuation and if it was pensionable, then she should be accruing additional pension benefits. They continually advised that they were correct but never provided an explanation of why my wife should be paying additional contributions without accruing additional benefits. Is this normal practice? My wife is not financially literate and was in tears trying to deal with the NHS pension department on this matter.

jem16

Ian6411 wrote: »

Am I right in thinking that delaying retirement after the NRD will not result in any increase to the eventual pension amount as a result of being paid for a shorter period?

As far as the deferred English part, yes.

If so, she would definitely need to claim benefits at NRD in each of the schemes to which she belongs or effectively lose out?

With regards to the 2008 scheme, this is different as she is still a member of the scheme. Her final salary at leaving will be used to calculate her final salary benefits. There would be no actuarial reduction to that part if she left before spa.

At the risk of hijacking my own thread. We had a lengthy exchange with NHS pensions a couple of years ago which was never satisfactorily resolved from my perspective. My wife works part-time and took a role for an additional day per week for 3 years. She paid superannuation on the additional earnings but her pension continued to accrue benefits only on her other role. We raised queries with the pension department suggesting that if the extra work was not pensionable then she should not be paying superannuation and if it was pensionable, then she should be accruing additional pension benefits. They continually advised that they were correct but never provided an explanation of why my wife should be paying additional contributions without accruing additional benefits. Is this normal practice? My wife is not financially literate and was in tears trying to deal with the NHS pension department on this matter.

Now this part I'm not sure about to be honest. Probably worth pursuing again when it comes to taking her benefits.

Ian6411

Wow, that was super quick. Thanks for the response. I believe that for the 2008 and the 2015 schemes, they cannot be drawn at different times and so will both become payable together?


I will likely try to get my wife to pursue the other question with the pensions department although she goes into tears whenever I raise this with her. She found the whole experience stressful and degrading last time around and it didn't help that she didn't really understand the issue. She thinks she was told that the additional day would not be pensionable when she took the role and so I would not have expected there to be a superannuation deduction. However, she has nothing in writing and is unsure whether she was told this or not. The pensions department simply responded that they added the service advised to them by the payroll department for that period and the payroll department have always failed to respond to any queries.

jem16

Ian6411 wrote: »

Wow, that was super quick. Thanks for the response. I believe that for the 2008 and the 2015 schemes, they cannot be drawn at different times and so will both become payable together?

That I cannot confirm I'm afraid. Before the CARE scheme was actually introduced there was talk that it would be possible to take the accrued benefits from the earlier sections whilst still remaining a member of the new scheme. This was with the Teachers' pension scheme but the NHS works on a similar basis. Having retired almost 3 years ago I haven't kept up to date with this so it's something you would need to check with the SPPA.

I will likely try to get my wife to pursue the other question with the pensions department although she goes into tears whenever I raise this with her. She found the whole experience stressful and degrading last time around and it didn't help that she didn't really understand the issue. She thinks she was told that the additional day would not be pensionable when she took the role and so I would not have expected there to be a superannuation deduction. However, she has nothing in writing and is unsure whether she was told this or not. The pensions department simply responded that they added the service advised to them by the payroll department for that period and the payroll department have always failed to respond to any queries.

Yes the SPPA gets its info from each Council but I would certainly get it looked into if you can.

xylophone

http://www.sppa.gov.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=838%3Aproposed-2015-pension-scheme-faqs&catid=405&Itemid=1531

http://www.sppa.gov.uk/Documents/Recently%20Updated%20Files/NHS/pensionable%20pay%20&%20contributions.pdf

Does the above help?

Has your wife put her queries in writing and received a response in writing with a full answers /explanations?

Flugelhorn

Isn't the npe for 2008 65 years ?

Am I right in thinking that delaying retirement after the NRD will not result in any increase to the eventual pension amount as a result of being paid for a shorter period? If so, she would definitely need to claim benefits at NRD in each of the schemes to which she belongs or effectively lose out?

Looks if you retire later the benefits are increased:
2008 section only - doesn't happen in the 1995

For members of the 2008 Section of the NHS Pension Scheme, this option means that if
they choose to retire later than their 65th birthday, the pension benefits earned before
age 65 will be increased by the application of late retirement factors: the later they retire,
the greater the increase.

jem16

xylophone wrote: »

http://www.sppa.gov.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=838%3Aproposed-2015-pension-scheme-faqs&catid=405&Itemid=1531

Ah looks like you have to retire before accessing the pensions. With the 2008 section having a NRD of 65 she would have to wait until then.

That's a pity that they're not allowing the 2008 part to be obtained at 65 without retiring. They had talked about doing so. This was particularly relevant for those on the earlier schemes with NRD of 60.

jem16

Flugelhorn wrote: »

Isn't the npe for 2008 65 years ?

Yes it is.

kidmugsy

Ian6411 wrote: »

She found the whole experience stressful and degrading last time around

When I was seriously ill and being mucked about by the NHS my wife got in touch with our MP (strictly, our recently retired MP). Then, by golly, the NHS pulled its finger out.