COPE

CaptSlog

I've looked at my state pension forecast, and at present it says I'm due to get £171 (the figure will obviously change before I get there).

I can see that I 'contracted out' and the same forecast tells me that my COPE estimate is £64.  It also says This will not affect your State Pension forecast. The COPE amount is paid as part of your other pension schemes, not by the government.

I'm not sure how this works.  Does it mean that 'The Gov' will pay me £107?  (£171-£64) .  And the £64 will come from somewhere else?

Depending on the answer, there'll be other questions, bear with me. 

Thanks

Jonty6262

You will get the headline figure in your post example  £171 from the gov

Troxy

No. Ignore the COPE figure. It was used in a calculation a few years back.

Your state pension will be £171 + whatever years you add up to the max (currently £185 ish) adjusted for triple lock or whatever method is used in the future

dunstonh

I can see that I 'contracted out' and the same forecast tells me that my COPE estimate is £64.  It also says This will not affect your State Pension forecast. The COPE amount is paid as part of your other pension schemes, not by the government.

The clue is in that paragraph.  

p00hsticks

CaptSlog said:

I've looked at my state pension forecast, and at present it says I'm due to get £171 (the figure will obviously change before I get there).

I can see that I 'contracted out' and the same forecast tells me that my COPE estimate is £64.  It also says This will not affect your State Pension forecast. The COPE amount is paid as part of your other pension schemes, not by the government.

I'm not sure how this works.  Does it mean that 'The Gov' will pay me £107?  (£171-£64) .  And the £64 will come from somewhere else?

Depending on the answer, there'll be other questions, bear with me. 

Thanks

As Jonty says, you'll get the £171.

But the presence of the COPE figure indicates that at some point pre-2016 you were contracted out of SERPS / S2P (effectively second part of the state pension) and therefore paying a lower rate of NI because you were in a corresponding private or employer pension scheme. 

There's no guarantee that that scheme will pay you £64 (in many cases it may be considerably more) but if you are not aware of having been in an employers scheme in your earlier years it;s an indication that you need to be thinking back to why the COPE could have arisien and tracking down the old employers pension scheme...

CaptSlog

Jonty6262 and @p00hsticks and yes I am aware of a older pension that needs to be claimed when it's time. 

dunstonh said:

I can see that I 'contracted out' and the same forecast tells me that my COPE estimate is £64.  It also says This will not affect your State Pension forecast. The COPE amount is paid as part of your other pension schemes, not by the government.

The clue is in that paragraph.

Yes, I saw that bit, and understood that I was going to get £171 (say)

But it says directly after your highlight that; The COPE amount is paid as part of your other pension schemes, not by the government.  Hence my questioning if the TOTAL £171 was made up from more than one source, which is what that sentence suggests.

I'm in the process of paying the class3 voluntary contributions to boost my pension (and Mrs Slog's) to the next level up.  

ader42

It would indeed be more helpful if the forecast site said something like:

the pension will be £171 from the government state pension and an additional estimated £64 COPE amount paid for by the additional contracted out private or employer scheme for an estimated total of £235; though this amount will vary depending upon the performance of your additional contracted out pension scheme.

Personally my COPE amount is £40 but the reality is my personal pension will pay me far more than that amount if I want when the time comes. For me contracting out was rubbish and my pension forecast dire - until I transferred out of the terrible fund schemes and took control of my investments in a SIPP - think this was due to the goodness that the coalition government brought us. 

Notepad_Phil

ader42 said:

It would indeed be more helpful if the forecast site said something like:

the pension will be £171 from the government state pension and an additional estimated £64 COPE amount paid for by the additional contracted out private or employer scheme for an estimated total of £235; though this amount will vary depending upon the performance of your additional contracted out pension scheme.

Personally my COPE amount is £40 but the reality is my personal pension will pay me far more than that amount if I want when the time comes. For me contracting out was rubbish and my pension forecast dire - until I transferred out of the terrible fund schemes and took control of my investments in a SIPP - think this was due to the goodness that the coalition government brought us. 

Unfortunately I'm sure that just as many people would then think that in your example the govt would pay them a total of £235, with £64 of it paid to the state by some company and then paid as part of the state pension -  then people will be really disappointed when that doesn't happen and they thought they'd get the £235 + e.g. DB pension they already knew of.

Perhaps the COPE £ amount should just be removed in its entirety.

xylophone

 It also says This will not affect your State Pension forecast. 

Well....it did affect the calculation of the "starting amount".... for Rebate Derived Amount read COPE.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-state-pension-if-youve-been-contracted-out-of-additional-state-pension/the-new-state-pension-transition-and-contracting-out-fact-sheet

p00hsticks

ader42 said:

It would indeed be more helpful if the forecast site said something like:

the pension will be £171 from the government state pension and an additional estimated £64 COPE amount paid for by the additional contracted out private or employer scheme for an estimated total of £235; though this amount will vary depending upon the performance of your additional contracted out pension scheme.

Personally my COPE amount is £40 but the reality is my personal pension will pay me far more than that amount if I want when the time comes. For me contracting out was rubbish and my pension forecast dire - until I transferred out of the terrible fund schemes and took control of my investments in a SIPP - think this was due to the goodness that the coalition government brought us. 

In my view at this stage I think it would be best to remove any front page reference to COPE at all. We can see from this forum that its presence causes far more questions than it provides answers for. After all it's only of relevance if people want to rework the calculations of their 2016 starting amount, whcih is over six years ago now.

IMHO It would be far more helpful to use the space to put up some wording to indicate that transitional rules mean if you started your working life prior to 2016 then the number of years required to obtain the maximum NSP will vary byy individual according to their particular NI record.

If they want to draw people's attention to the fact that they may have been contracted out pre-2016, they could always put some wording along the lines of 'your NI record indicates that at some point you may have been enrolled in a private employers pension which may pay out an additional sum and we recommend you review your employment history to identify your membership of any such schemes'  with no mention of any specific figures.