Working after ill health retirement on Alpha

Lilacchiara

 I’m 49 and asked for medical retirement 4years ago and was given upper tier on the civil service Alpha pension. This has enhancement as I can’t do my job or any job. My health hasn’t changed and I am still unable to work. However I started drawing and painting while lying down due to my spinal condition as a hobby and now people want to buy my paintings and my husband was going to sell them. Has anyone taken this type of retirement and did any self employment after? Does it affect the pension? Would they take the enhancement amount away? I took the maximum lump sum as well could it be affected? I can’t find anything online. I was on Classic for 20 years and you could work after that but I was on alpha for the last 2 years so got my ill health retirement through it with the two tiers. I’m affected by the McLeod remedy and wondering if I should revert back to classic. Any advice would be welcome. 

Kim1965

I believe if a person does ANY paid work with an enhanced ill health pension they will lose the enhancement. 

mick08

Kim1965 said:

I believe if a person does ANY paid work with an enhanced ill health pension they will lose the enhancement. 

I got upper tier Ill health nhs retirement, I'm allowed to earn up to the lower earning limit, I think it's £123 per week, I don't though as I'm not capable.

hugheskevi

The scheme rules repeatedly emphasise the definition for ill-health enhancement is around capability for gainful employment.

So it would depend on the frequency and amounts involved - if we are talking a few drawings selling for tens of pounds now and again, that would be very different to producing hundreds of drawings each fetching hundreds of pounds.

You have a review of the ill-health award in any case not less than every 5 years, regardless of any employment.

I’m affected by the McLeod remedy and wondering if I should revert back to classic. 

You will almost certainly be better off under alpha - your pension is enhanced to a much later normal pension age and at a much higher accrual rate. You will receive details of your entitlement under each option to inform your decision by April 2025.

Lilacchiara

hugheskevi said:

The repeatedly emphasise the definition for ill-health enhancement is around capability for gainful employment.

So it would depend on the frequency and amounts involved - if we are talking a few drawings selling for tens of pounds now and again, that would be very different to producing hundreds of drawings each fetching hundreds of pounds.

You have a review of the ill-health award in any case not less than every 5 years, regardless of any employment.

I’m affected by the McLeod remedy and wondering if I should revert back to classic. 

You will almost certainly be better off under alpha - your pension is enhanced to a much later normal pension age and at a much higher accrual rate. You will receive details of your entitlement under each option to inform your decision by April 2025.

Thanks for that. Would it make a difference my husband would be doing the selling. Taking them to markets and galleries, doing social media, taking orders, packaging and delivering them?  I’m only drawing them. This was his idea as my pension doesn’t give a great standard of living especially at the moment and he is my carer and only gets carers allowance. Also I was on £30k a year I wouldn’t be making anything like that maybe £2000 a year approx so it definitely isn’t an equivalent position. 

On the point of reverting to classic - I was thinking that yes I would get less on classic than alpha but still more than I would get if they took my enhancement off me and under classic you can still work even tho you are medically retired so overall I think I would be better off. What do you think? Should I phone someone at the CSP and ask these questions? Thanks for your advice. 

hugheskevi

The only thing which matters is whether you are in gainful employment or not. Personally I would not view £2,000 a year as coming close to meeting requirements of gainful employment, but that will be down to the individual decision maker.

You cannot make choice to switch to classic until provided with your options, so it is a moot point at the moment. Be concerned with that at such time that you receive options pack.

MyCSP won't give you any helpful information on this, as it would be case-specific. At  best, you could ask what their defintion of gainful employment is, but I doubt you would receive anything useful.

If you are satisfied your activies do not constitute gainful employment, then there is nothing to be concerned about.