USS - General discussion

Morgan-Green

Barralad77 said:

See Note 4.

Yes I had spotted that too. I have about 13 years service prior to 2011 so definitely worth seeing if I can hold on to membership until March next year!

MarlowMallard

Thanks to Barralad77 for the table.  Yes the key line is "retire from age 60 from active service with employer consent".  So if you're still in-post at 60.0 then retire, there's no ERF (i.e. factor 100%) on the pre-Oct-2011 benefits.    If you retire at 59.9 then take benefits at 60, you get 3.5 years ERF applied to the pre-Oct-2011 portion.  

There was in the past a separate provision for redundancy (maybe after 55?) , but I think that may have been scrapped a long time ago. 
 
Both cases above would get 5 years ERF applied to Oct 2011-2020, 6 years for Oct 2020 - now.    

Morgan-Green

Thanks for the advice so far.  I'm going to ask in individual consultation if the uni will consider retaining my services on a 0.2FTE contract to my 60th next March, but in the meantime I have started a £1k monthly additional contribution to the Investment Builder regardless.  If they decline a fractional contract I will take VR and add the payment to the DC savings as a lump sum.
  

Twigwidge

your UCU rep may be able to help negotiate this

Morgan-Green

Morgan-Green said:

I'm going to ask in individual consultation if the uni will consider retaining my services on a 0.2FTE contract to my 60th next March  

They've dismissed this option on the basis that three other colleagues are in the same pool as me and they have to treat us all equally, so it looks like I need to maximise my pension before I go instead.  As I said earlier, I've added £1k per month in additional contributions and the voluntary redundancy payment is £4.1k so I guess I can ask for that to be added in.

Then I just hold my breath, ride my savings, or find other work until March next year when I am 60....

Twigwidge

Morgan-Green said:

Morgan-Green said:

I'm going to ask in individual consultation if the uni will consider retaining my services on a 0.2FTE contract to my 60th next March  

They've dismissed this option on the basis that three other colleagues are in the same pool as me and they have to treat us all equally, so it looks like I need to maximise my pension before I go instead.  As I said earlier, I've added £1k per month in additional contributions and the voluntary redundancy payment is £4.1k so I guess I can ask for that to be added in.

Then I just hold my breath, ride my savings, or find other work until March next year when I am 60....

Seriously have a word with your union rep about this (assuming you are a member) if you have put in years of service at your institution it is not asking much to allow you to go part time if it is not going to cost your employer anything, this cliff edge situation at 60 has been well covered in the press and if you read this article, clearly some Unis have been willing to help their staff out:  https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/staff-pushed-early-retirement-face-pensions-cliff-edge

Morgan-Green

Twigwidge said:

Seriously have a word with your union rep about this (assuming you are a member) if you have put in years of service at your institution it is not asking much to allow you to go part time if it is not going to cost your employer anything, this cliff edge situation at 60 has been well covered in the press and if you read this article, clearly some Unis have been willing to help their staff out:  https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/staff-pushed-early-retirement-face-pensions-cliff-edge

Will do, thanks. The four of us are putting a counter proposal together too.  It's worth a try.

Morgan-Green

I had another thought.  If they won't go for a fractional contract I wonder if they would allow me to take unpaid leave of absence for the last few months until my 60th?

Barralad77

You’ll probably have to check with USS how they would view that, but I suspect it might not be acceptable to them. The reason being, it isn’t effectively any different to you simply deferring taking your pension (and if you defer until 60 then the NPA for the pre-2011 contributions will remain at 63.5). For example, if you are, say, 59 years and 2 months, then taking 10 months unpaid leave will, I assume, mean making no contributions each month, which seems to be no different to retiring at that point and waiting 10 months until taking the pension. I think this is the case for all NPAs. By which I mean that if you stop contributing (e.g.,) 4 years before the ERF reduces to 1.0 then the ERF doesn’t ’improve’ over that four year period. The ERF that applies when you stop contributing is the one that will be applied regardless of when you finally start taking the pension. At least that’s what my memory is telling me, but it’s so complicated that I this could well all be wrong, in which case I apologise!

swindiff

A sabbatical might be a way round it rather than unpaid leave?