Police Pension Advice

jimi_man

Hi

The 30 years part is less relevant to you, since that was the time under the old system needed to accrue the maximum (2/3) pension. (It does have a small effect in terms of the double accrual 'expectation').

Even a day under that meant that commutation (most police officers seem to commute for some reason) was vastly reduced to 2.25 x annual pension instead of an approximate 25%. In your case that doesn't apply as you're over 55 and so you'd be able to commute (should you wish to - read up some of the comments on this forum about that!) the full 25% or so of your pension. 

So with that in mind it's just a case of deciding when you personally want to retire, as others have said. 27.5 years under the 87 scheme is going to give you around 35/60 ths of your current pensionable salary (dependent on rank). For a top rate Constable, that's around £24k.  Then any service after that will be under the new scheme which generates around £740 per year increasing each year by CPI + 1.25%. Obviously depends on how many years you do. You can take it from 55 onwards immediately, though there will be an actuarial adjustment from 60 (say 4.5% roughly per year) as you're taking it early. This isn't a penalty - you're claiming it for longer, it's supposed to be cost neutral. 

In very simple terms, those are the rough figures. You can extrapolate them for your own circumstances and depending on your own personal wealth, savings, etc, make a decision. Do the State Pension check, you'll have been contracted out for a lot of years so may not have built it up to the maximum you can get yet.

And do search on taking commutation. My commutation factor was 21.5 x pension (I'm also a retired police officer) which bearing in mind my age at the time (51) was abysmal and I didn't need a large lump sum so I didn't take it. It's a highly personal decision though so weigh up all the factors, not just whether it's financially prudent. 

Good luck. (And keep paying your contributions as it goes towards my pension! 

AlanP_2

JUST SEEN THIS IS A DUPLICATE THREAD SO may have already been covered in the other one.

It sounds like up until 31/03/22 you will have a 1987 scheme pension and any service after that date will build up a 2015 pension.

The "age" thing is what was found to be unlawful as it was discriminatory (across all public sector schemes).

Can you work out what the impact would be based on the accrual rates for each of the different schemes, length of service etc? 

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've merged the two threads into one