Civil service pension

Andy_L

Fangfoss said:

Is taking up the partnership scheme straight forward and would I be able to transfer my two private pensions into it.

Yes & yes - although transferring may or may not be a good idea

JoeCrystal

Fangfoss said:

Is taking up the partnership scheme straight forward and would I be able to transfer my two private pensions into it.

It is also worth asking for quotes to see what your private pension schemes can buy in Alpha pension scheme.
Speaking of which, I greatly appreciate that you want to opt-out of the Alpha pension scheme since you will save the taxpayers a lot of money in the long run. 

Bravepants

hugheskevi said:

Bravepants said:

Presumably what you have accrued in PCSPS Classic is a deferrred final salary pension. Why would that be affected by your joining Alpha? I have nearly 20 years in Premium and that is deferred until NRA of 60, with yearly increases for CPI. I switched to Alpha in 2015 and my Premium pension is not affected by that - I will still get what I have accrued in Premium.

Alpha is a very good pension, it accrues at a faster rate (1/43) than Premium, for example, which accrued at 1/60. Why do people still have a problem with Alpha? Very Odd!

Rejoining within 5 years of leaving re-activates a final salary link (for those who would return to alpha) - presumably you left premium some time ago (pre 2015) and rejoined, or had 5+ years out to break final salary link.

Sorry if I'm wrong and I don't want to hijack this thread in any way, but just to clarify...I didn't leave the CS, I was simply moved onto Alpha from Premium in 2015. Each year I get a pension statement that shows my Premium Benefits accrued, with associated NRA, and Alpha as a separate statement of benefits. I see no effect on my Premium benefits because of Alpha.

I appreciate that this thread is about leaving and re-joining however.

hugheskevi

Bravepants said:

 just to clarify...I didn't leave the CS, I was simply moved onto Alpha from Premium in 2015. Each year I get a pension statement that shows my Premium Benefits accrued, with associated NRA, and Alpha as a separate statement of benefits. I see no effect on my Premium benefits because of Alpha.

You previously said:

I have nearly 20 years in Premium and that is deferred until NRA of 60, with yearly increases for CPI.

Given you simply moved across to alpha, your Premium pension is still an active pension, not deferred, and remains linked to your final salary. It may have been going up by CPI in recent years if your salary has increased by less than CPI, as Premium looks back a long way to measure your best final salary, using inflation adjusted values for past years. Hence if the measure of your best final salary is from a past year, your Premium pension will be going up in line with prices.

Alpha is a completely separate pension scheme, so you have an active membership of two pension schemes. However, the active status is shared by the schemes, so if you were to leave alpha then you would leave Premium, and a deferred Premium award would be calculated that increases in line with prices until Normal Pension age. In particular, leaving alpha would break the final salary link in Premium, with the Premium pension deferred award being based on the best measure of final salary (there are 3 different ways of calculating final pay and you get the highest of any method) at the date of leaving.

marky_b_2

Sorry to hijack this thread as well but I do have a question about leaving and rejoining within 5 years.

i joined the Civil Service in Jan 1991 and got privatised in Oct 2001 so I have over 10 years service in Classic, when I left my pensionable pay was £13291 according to the ABS that I requested.

i rejoined the Civil Service in Jun 2003 and joined Premuim which I’ll have just under 19 years come April 2022.

I am going to go Partial retirement at 50 years old in July 2023, my current pensionable pay is £30000.

Would the £30000 pensionable pay figure be used to calculate my initial Classic 10 years pension rather than £13000 due to me rejoining the Civil Service with 5 years?

i had budgeted the 10 years Classic on the £13291 figure so that would be a bonus.

Thanks

Edit, just to add that my Classic ABS shows my pension at date of leaving the scheme and has a revised figure at date of the ABS being produced.

Also, there is a paragraph saying:
If you stopped building up reckonable service in classic because you transitioned into Alpha then your pensionable earnings will be as at the date you left Alpha.
Your benefits will continue to be increased in line with changes in price up to your normal pension age.

I moved from Classic to rejoining Premuim but I’ll be in Alpha from April 2022 if this has any relevance.

Thanks again.

TVAS

You need to ask the Partnership scheme scheme if they will accept transfers from two previous arrangements and you should have provided the full story re you not wanting to join the Alpha scheme because of imminent part time service at outset. 

marky_b_2

I phoned Civil Service Pensions, they have raised my query about the higher pensionable pay to their technical team to get a correct answer as the call handler wasn’t 100% sure on the 5 year ruling.

He did say though that if I take my deferred Classic before 55 then I would lose all my CPI rises from when I left the scheme and that I wouldn’t get them back.
I had a previous phone call with CS pensions and they said the CPI rises would be back dated once I turned 55.

A quick calculation on the higher pensionable pay figure for the same Classic service works out better for me at 50 than waiting until I am 55 to take Classic on the lower pensionable pay figure in order to get my CPI rises included.