I cannot work from home I work for the NHS

Dazed_and_C0nfused

I don’t earn enough to pay enough tax to claim anything back

If you pay some tax it is still worth claiming if you have had to WFH due to Covid-19.  For most people the tax benefit is only £1.20/week anyway.

Irrespective of that though a claim might put you in a position where you could then benefit (as part of a couple) from applying for Marriage Allowance.

Hubby’s Royal Mail pension is hardly worth the paper it’s written on- even after 33 years service I was shocked at how small it was

That sounds a bit unlikely.  If the scheme has changed over the years are you taking account of all elements of it?

And don't forget you will probably be entitled to a combined State Pension of £18.2k/year on top of your four works pensions, despite having paid less National Insurance than most for a number of years.

Pollycat

I too was a bit taken aback at this comment:

Mrs_Ryan said:

Hubby’s Royal Mail pension is hardly worth the paper it’s written on- even after 33 years service I was shocked at how small it was. Working in the public sector isn’t all that great.

dunstonh

Neither of us have gold plated pensions

Yes you do.

Hubby’s Royal Mail pension is hardly worth the paper it’s written on- even after 33 years service I was shocked at how small it was. 

The Royal Mail pension was a final salary pension (aka gold plated) and cost him very little in contributions into it and paid a percentage of his earnings when he retired.   He got 1/80th for every year he worked plus a lump sum entitlement on top.     33 years service in the pension would pay him almost half of his final salary plus a lump sum.

The only reason it would be considered small is if he opted out of being a member for most of the time he worked for them. 

Working in the public sector isn’t all that great.

But the pensions are.

Pollycat

dunstonh said:

Neither of us have gold plated pensions

Yes you do.

Hubby’s Royal Mail pension is hardly worth the paper it’s written on- even after 33 years service I was shocked at how small it was. 

The Royal Mail pension was a final salary pension (aka gold plated) and cost him very little in contributions into it and paid a percentage of his earnings when he retired.   He got 1/80th for every year he worked plus a lump sum entitlement on top.     33 years service in the pension would pay him almost half of his final salary plus a lump sum.

The only reason it would be considered small is if he opted out of being a member for most of the time he worked for them. 

Working in the public sector isn’t all that great.

But the pensions are.

Mrs_Ryan's husband is still working.

Didn't the RM final salary scheme close some years ago? (I'm not up to date on this as I retired in 2003).

I'm not disputing what you're saying, just pointing out that he wouldn't get 33 years final salary pension benefits.

dunstonh

Pollycat said:

dunstonh said:

Neither of us have gold plated pensions

Yes you do.

Hubby’s Royal Mail pension is hardly worth the paper it’s written on- even after 33 years service I was shocked at how small it was. 

The Royal Mail pension was a final salary pension (aka gold plated) and cost him very little in contributions into it and paid a percentage of his earnings when he retired.   He got 1/80th for every year he worked plus a lump sum entitlement on top.     33 years service in the pension would pay him almost half of his final salary plus a lump sum.

The only reason it would be considered small is if he opted out of being a member for most of the time he worked for them. 

Working in the public sector isn’t all that great.

But the pensions are.

Mrs_Ryan's husband is still working.

Didn't the RM final salary scheme close some years ago? (I'm not up to date on this as I retired in 2003).

I'm not disputing what you're saying, just pointing out that he wouldn't get 33 years final salary pension benefits.

There have been multiple version     Those that joined before April 87 were on an 80ths scheme until April 08.  Those that joined after were on a 60ths scheme.       Anything accrued before April 2008 is final salary.  Anything accrued after is career average (from 2008 to 2018).  In April 2018, it switched to a "cash balance" fund.

So, if the person is still working and joined in the pre April 87 scheme, they would actually have three segments to their pension now.  There is no way someone with 33 years of service with Royal Mail has anything other than a good pension relative to their earnings (31 years of it being on defined benefit)

Pollycat

dunstonh said:

There have been multiple version     Those that joined before April 87 were on an 80ths scheme until April 08.  Those that joined after were on a 60ths scheme.       Anything accrued before April 2008 is final salary.  Anything accrued after is career average (from 2008 to 2018).  In April 2018, it switched to a "cash balance" fund.

So, if the person is still working and joined in the pre April 87 scheme, they would actually have three segments to their pension now.  There is no way someone with 33 years of service with Royal Mail has anything other than a good pension relative to their earnings (31 years of it being on defined benefit)

It appears the person is still working so wouldn't have a full final salary pension - and so not

dunstonh said:

almost half of his final salary plus a lump sum.

But still a good pension.

Kim_kim

superbigal said:

Surely everyone can see the point the OP is making is the majority of those working at home are NOT incurring additional costs but actually probably saving costs and time.   I for one am fed up of people on this forum squealing for help, because the teabags they used to get in the office, they now need to pay for themselves.

I’ve been working from home since March.  I am saving petrol every week, I’m saving wear & tear on the car, I’m even saving on Costa & Sainsbury’s meal deals!
I have claimed the £6 a week tax break.  But I agree, it’s cheaper to wfh even taking into account the extra heating. 

Kim_kim

annabanana82 said:

Aranyani said:

annabanana82 said:

Aranyani said:

annabanana82 said:

My friend works in the NHS as a nurse, not frontline but offering a much needed and valuable role to some of the most vulnerable in our society. She found it all very embarrassing throughout the lockdown all the offers of free things and jump ahead of the queue. She only took advantage a couple of times but didn't like the attention it came with. In her eyes she was only doing her job, and other colleagues were suffering far more than herself. 

As for the working at home, I've been lucky enough to be at home throughout as another public sector worker. We are going to be out of office for at least another 6 months. There is going to be a massive job of paper filing when we eventually go back, which I'm not sure has really been considered or how it's going to be managed. 
With much of the PS/CS relying on paper files I can see there is at least one valid arguement for staff being in the office depending on your role, but I'm sure there are others.

I hope you've been provided with lockable cases/files if you're expected to store confidential paperwork for over a year! 

We aren't producing any hard copies of anything, so not only will we have filing to do but 1 years worth of printing...

Well then the best thing to do would be to invest in a secure shared server to avoid all the above.  Most NHS trusts already have them. 

We do, I'd be surprised if there was a government department without them. 
But that doesn't negate the fact that we will still have hard copy filing to do when we eventually go back

I’m local government- we are almost paperless in my area.
We’ve been wfh since mid March, very successfully.  People take it in turns to go into the office once a week to scan the post in, there isn’t much.  

Barny1979

The OP has forgotten that the main reason for people working from home is to help her and her colleagues in the NHS.

strawb_shortcake

Kim_kim said:

annabanana82 said:

Aranyani said:

annabanana82 said:

Aranyani said:

annabanana82 said:

My friend works in the NHS as a nurse, not frontline but offering a much needed and valuable role to some of the most vulnerable in our society. She found it all very embarrassing throughout the lockdown all the offers of free things and jump ahead of the queue. She only took advantage a couple of times but didn't like the attention it came with. In her eyes she was only doing her job, and other colleagues were suffering far more than herself. 

As for the working at home, I've been lucky enough to be at home throughout as another public sector worker. We are going to be out of office for at least another 6 months. There is going to be a massive job of paper filing when we eventually go back, which I'm not sure has really been considered or how it's going to be managed. 
With much of the PS/CS relying on paper files I can see there is at least one valid arguement for staff being in the office depending on your role, but I'm sure there are others.

I hope you've been provided with lockable cases/files if you're expected to store confidential paperwork for over a year! 

We aren't producing any hard copies of anything, so not only will we have filing to do but 1 years worth of printing...

Well then the best thing to do would be to invest in a secure shared server to avoid all the above.  Most NHS trusts already have them. 

We do, I'd be surprised if there was a government department without them. 
But that doesn't negate the fact that we will still have hard copy filing to do when we eventually go back

I’m local government- we are almost paperless in my area.
We’ve been wfh since mid March, very successfully.  People take it in turns to go into the office once a week to scan the post in, there isn’t much.  

We aren't even allowed in the office unless we are critical or staff or have welfare issues. We had been working at 20% capacity in office but for other reasons this has had to be cut back. 

It's been talked about going paperless for years, this may be the prompt to push it, but for my line of work I think we'll always need to keep a degree of paper files.