LGPS - Combining previous deffered membership

Katgoddess

I had a local government job a few years ago and left after taking voluntary redundancy. I now have a new job in local government and have been told I need to decide on whether to combine my deferred pension or not. This is the leaflet I was advised to look at by the pension scheme:
https://www.yourpensionservice.org.uk/media/1594/combining-document-a.pdf


My old FTE final salary was more than my current FTE salary but overall it's a amount. Any thoughts or suggestions on what to do, as I'm rather confused!

Silvertabby

Is the gap between leaving and re-joining more - or less - than 5 years?

When you say that your old FTE salary was higher than your current salary, is that with or without cost of living increases added?

Katgoddess

Silvertabby wrote: »

Is the gap between leaving and re-joining more - or less - than 5 years?

When you say that your old FTE salary was higher than your current salary, is that with or without cost of living increases added?

The gap is less than five years. Technically it's the same pension scheme from the same council, but I have a different employer. It's an academy school that buys into the council's pension scheme. (Or however it works!)



I'm not sure about cost of living etc but I was on Grade 7 (Doing 16 hours) and I'm now on Grade 5 (doing 10 hours). I can't see myself moving up in the next 10 years or so whilst my kids are small. Maybe when my little on is at secondary school.

Silvertabby

The hours don't count in this case - it's your WTE salary and, by the sound of it, you have taken a drop in salary.

If you were to combine, than ALL of your previous final salary service (up to April 2014) would be rec-calculated on your current Grade 5 salary, instead of Grade 7 plus cost of living increases from your date of leaving.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if you were confident of attaining - at least - Grade 8 eventually.

In this scenario, especially as you are so young, there is no right or wrong answer. It's real crystal ball stuff, based on your future earnings, chance of redundancy (post age 55 or higher) and, to a certain extent, future scheme rules.

How much pre 2014 service do you have? If it's not much, then you may wish to combine for your own convenience - ie, one pension to keep track of instead of two.

Or you could keep them seperate, in which case your deferred record (based on your Grade 7 salary) would increase each year in line with CPI inflation, regardless of your salary increases.

Katgoddess

It was 18 months at grade 7 and about 6 years at grade 5 so not much. I think I will combined as I really don't know how things will be in the future?

Silvertabby

Katgoddess wrote: »

It was 18 months at grade 7 and about 6 years at grade 5 so not much. I think I will combined as I really don't know how things will be in the future?

If that was 6 years at grade 5 followed by 18 months at grade 7 then all of your 7.5 years (pre 2014?) service would have been deferred on your grade 7 final pensionable pay.

If you were much nearer retirement, this would have been a far easier question - but it really is crystal ball territory, I'm afraid.

woolly_wombat

Katgoddess wrote: »

It was 18 months at grade 7 and about 6 years at grade 5 so not much. I think I will combined as I really don't know how things will be in the future?

Combining could be an expensive mistake IMHO.

Unless you believe that cash-strapped schools/councils are going to be the recipients of central government largesse going forward.....