Advice on Classic CSP i'll health retirement

Alanmac

Hi I am currently trying to deal with the civil service pension scheme department or Mycsp
I have an I'll health retirement certificate which has been issued, and have reached the stage where my employer has received and passed to me an estimate for i'll health retirement through my membership of the Classic Scheme

the information I would like if possible is , why the estimate I have received does not seem to in any way match up to the schemes guide on enhancement to the Classic pension, when I'll health becomes the triggering factor.

Classic is the only scheme, which according to its guide does not operate a two tier system when it comes to enhancement,as opposed to all other current schemes.

I myself am still in the Classic Scheme until next year when I am Scheduled to move into the Alpha scheme.
I have been in my current post for the last twenty seven years,so fit in the category for over ten years of service with regards to the classic scheme guide, though the estimate is only offering
me three years of enhancement to take me to my normal pension age of sixty (I am currently fifty seven) there is no way I can see possible that three years of enhancement would figure according to the guide...
the first category of enhancement is for members who have served between five and ten years of service,ad this category states that the enhancement would be to Double the served period
you can view the Guide for the scheme by searching for it on google by typing

Classic ill-health retirement pension benefits and looking for the result which has pdf beside it
(not allowed to post links here) or read the relevant parts I have copied and pasted below....

any help regarding this matter would be very much appreciated as, as far as I can see the guide which is from the CSPS themselves clearly identifies the rules of enhancement....
thanks in advance....



I HAVE COPIED AND PASTED THE WORDING FROM THE GUIDE HERE

Will my benefits be enhanced?
This will depend upon the length of your
service. If you have:
• Less than two years’ qualifying service
No. You are not eligible for the award
of pension benefits. However, you
are entitled to transfer your benefits
out of classic, if you apply within
certain time limits. There is further
information about how to do this
in the leaflet ‘Leaving premium or
classic before pension age with less
than 2 years’ service’.
• Two to five years’ qualifying service
No. Your benefits will be worked out
using your actual reckonable service.
• Between five years’ qualifying
service and ten years’ reckonable
service
Yes. Your reckonable service will
be doubled. However, your benefits
must not exceed those you would
have earned if you had worked
until five years after pension age (in
other words, until age 65 for most
members).

• Over ten years’ reckonable service
Yes. Your reckonable service is
increased under Method A or B,
whichever gives the best result:
Method A
Your reckonable service is increased
to 20 years, or, if it is less, to the
amount you would have built up if
you had worked until five years after
pension age.
Method B
Your reckonable service is increased
by 6 2/3 years, or, if it is less, to the
amount you would have built up by
pension age.

Dazed_and_confused

Over ten years’ reckonable service
Yes. Your reckonable service is increased under Method A or B,whichever gives the best result:
Method A
Your reckonable service is increasedto 20 years, or, if it is less, to the amount you would have built up if you had worked until five years after pension age.
Method B
Your reckonable service is increased by 6 2/3 years, or, if it is less, to the amount you would have built up by pension age.

Doesn't the bit in bold apply to your circumstances?

Alanmac

Have spoken to more than three different staff from their pension department and none of them had even seen their own guide on this
the one guy who works for them who opened the actual guide read it back to me and said it clearly should be scenario A as it says which ever provides the best result
though he would not confirm this for me and now in a dispute with them...
and still doesn't account for only three years....?

Dazed_and_confused

How can it be A when you already have 27 years reckonable service?

Or did your 27 years service somehow equate to less than 20 less reckonable service?

Alanmac

this category is for members with over ten years service ...which I have
and the description of this category, above A and B clearly says which ever provides the best result....take note it actually states the enhancement to... five years after pension age that being the schemes normal pension age of sixty...

Your reckonable service is increased
to 20 years, or, if it is less, to the
amount you would have built up if
you had worked until five years after
pension age

hugheskevi

Your reckonable service is increased to 20 years

So the amount by which your reckonable service would be increased by to bring it up to 20 years is zero, as you already have over 20 years of service.

, or, if it is less, to the amount you would have built up if you had worked until five years after pension age [

This part is not applicable, as any enhancement to age 65 would be more (not less than) the zero enhancement to 20 years of service.

For example, take a member with 11 years of service aged 59. Enhancing this member's service to 20 years would be a 9 year enhancement, but they only have 6 years to age 65 (Normal Pension age plus 5 years). This member would therefore have an enhancement under Method A of 6 years. Under Method B it would be 1 year.

As you already have more than 20 years of service, Method B is higher than Method A.

Alanmac

• Between five years’ qualifying
service and ten years’ reckonable
service
Yes. Your reckonable service will
be doubled. However, your benefits
must not exceed those you would
have earned if you had worked
until five years after pension age (in
other words, until age 65 for most
members).

keeping in mind the criteria for the previous category I find difficulty in understanding this
as far as I see it I would think I should be looking at eight years enhancement to cover the three to my normal pension age of sixty and five to take me to the sixty five mentioned...otherwise why is sixty five mentioned at all...

Alanmac

as a new member here I can't post a link to the actual guide but if some kind person could copy this into google and choose the resulting pdf file perhaps this could let some others take a look at it

pbihr_web-20150714.pdf

Dazed_and_confused

You cannot ignore the bit highlighted in bold,

Method A
Your reckonable service is increased
to 20 years, or, if it is less, to the
amount you would have built up if
you had worked until five years after
pension age.

The fact is in your case it isn't less. So Method A would effectively give you 20 years.

As Method B gives you 30 years Method B is better.

50Twuncle

So they're still doing it are they ?
I was medically retired almost 11 years ago with 25 years classic pension built up and they refused to pay me any enhancement at all !

Alanmac

50 Twuncle
yes it beggars belief, the fact that if you put in anything more than 20 years service you actually get worked over, Diddled, stitched up... or whatever other terminology you choose... by a pension scheme that takes all your contributions... yet will pay better enhancement to someone who has only provided five to ten years of service...nice to know that if you joined young enough it could be even worse say you joined as a youngster as did my previous boss.. and put in 30 years or more then you have an incident at work or in my case three separate incidents which have contributed to a medical condition which now has rendered me unfit to carry on in my posts duties...... that your hard worked for contributed payments...
will benefit others who have put in a fraction of the service you have and they will actually receive more enhancement /benefits than you.....

well this kind of dispels any rumours of the old Civil service being a place who look after their own....I still cant fathom why the hell the guide for this scheme even ventures into mentioning terminology such as referring to periods of time up to five years after its normal pension age....
if the answers on here are correct.. why didn't they just cut to the chase and print in the guide that the maximum enhancement possible is to take you to 20 years of service and be done with it....
if that had been the case it may just have afforded the scheme members the benefit of being aware and possibly choosing to take out some form of cover through another pension/Insurance scheme...just like in most eventualities these days kind of akin to the miss selling of policies.... which would be deemed to have been more beneficial to the members of said schemes to have taken out alternative policies....????