NHS survivors pension help

pafpcg

Onecanhope wrote: »

..... His pension before he passed was £1816pm after tax. The letter states she will receive half payments - so we believed it to be around £900- but the figure given by them is £400pm after tax.

Could it be that your grandmother's £400pm has been reduced by a deduction of income tax at an emergency tax code? Have NHS BSA given you a pension figure before tax? It's that figure which should be half of your grandfather's pension before tax - you should be able to find that on a recent NHS Pension Scheme "Advice of Payment" document sent out by Equiniti every April. The Advice of Payment should show the annual pension and the monthly gross amount (before tax) and the net amount (after tax).

Silvertabby

pafpcg wrote: »

Could it be that your grandmother's £400pm has been reduced by a deduction of income tax at an emergency tax code? Have NHS BSA given you a pension figure before tax? It's that figure which should be half of your grandfather's pension before tax - you should be able to find that on a recent NHS Pension Scheme "Advice of Payment" document sent out by Equiniti every April. The Advice of Payment should show the annual pension and the monthly gross amount (before tax) and the net amount (after tax).

Could be an element of that. The lump sum OP mentions in post No 1 would have been the (monthly) pension arrears rather than any tax free death grant, and so the tax applied could be on the assumption that the widow's pension is 12 x the 3 or 4 months total arrears. However, I would have thought that the pensions administrator could have told the family the annual pre tax pension. Not any of this nonsense about 'that's all that is left in the pot'.

xylophone

It seems to me that it is the delay and obfuscation (apart from any errors that may have been made in calculations) that should form an important part of a complaint.

The OP's grandmother, widowed after fifty nine years of marriage is elderly and grieving and appears to have received little or no assistance or consideration from the administrators.

To have reduced this lady to the point that she has almost exhausted her savings and is ready to accept what may be a flawed decision just to be done with the matter is utterly unacceptable.

It is certainly nothing like the efficiency with which the widow's pension was handled by the DB schemes of which relatives were members.


Complain!

Linton

It would appear that service prior to 1972 only provides 33% widows pension. See :
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2018-01/NHS%20Pension%20Scheme%20Useful%20Dates-20180122-%28V2%29.pdf

xylophone

Could it be that your grandmother's £400pm has been reduced by a deduction of income tax at an emergency tax code?

I notice that the OP seems aware that there is a need for a tax adjustment of some description but isn't getting very far with this query either.

Considering it took us 6 called and 5 months to receive the first letter and we still haven’t got one from them for the tax I’m losing hope on where to take it

And what on earth is going on with the "four times posted" breakdown of figures?

however we have still yet to receive a break down of figures etc even though it’s been allegedly posted 4 times

Silvertabby

Linton wrote: »

It would appear that service prior to 1972 only provides 33% widows pension. See :
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2018-01/NHS%20Pension%20Scheme%20Useful%20Dates-20180122-%28V2%29.pdf

OP's grandfather (date of marriage 1959/1960?) could have opted to pay extra contributions to top up the widow's pension to 50%. Even if he didn't, that doesn't explain the amount currently offered.

xylophone

It would appear that service prior to 1972 only provides 33% widows pension.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323876/survivor-benefits-in-occupational-pension-schemes-annex-a.pdf

This is mentioned in the above, but it is still difficult to see how the pension has (apparently) been reduced to 22% of the grandfather's pension?

But as I have said above, a large part of the complaint must centre round maladministration?

It seems that the widow was specifically informed that she was entitled to a 50% pension after three months at full rate.

It took months for the three months' pension to be received.

This very elderly widow was left in hardship to the extent that she exhausted her savings.

The pension was reduced from the previously stated amount without explanation.

When an explanation was sought, utterly incorrect information ("all that was left in the pot") was given.

we have still yet to receive a break down of figures etc even though it’s been allegedly posted 4 times

Can a letter really have gone astray in the post four times?

After an unwarranted delay there is to be a further delay while the matter is under investigation.

Really very, very poor service.

kidmugsy

Envy of the wowld, mite, envy of the wowld.

When we were being mucked around by the NHS my wife put our MP onto them (strictly, our just-retired MP) and they immediately jumped to and stopped misbehaving. Maybe worth a shot?

squirrelpie

we have still yet to receive a break down of figures etc even though it’s been allegedly posted 4 times

” Can a letter really have gone astray in the post four times?

What address was it posted to? If that is/was wrong then it will never be received.

Onecanhope

Silvertabby wrote: »

The only thing I can think of is that the NHS have the wrong date of marriage on record - if that's been input as a date after he he retired, then they'll only be using his service from 1978 to 1988 in the benefit calculations.

Don't let this go - I know from a family member's experience that NHS pensions are beggers for saying - 'the computer says .... so it must be right'.

They called my gran today out of the blue asking her to confirm the marriage date. They had her married in 1994 - 8 years after his retirement - when they were actually married in 1959. They have even had copies of the marriage certificate! Hopefully this may be why they have caused the error and we can get it resolved soon. It’s been a nightmare

Thanks for your comment, it gives me some support