Civil Service & LGPS pensions - response times to early retirement request

ToneP

Hi, does anyone have recent experience in applying for early retirement under the Civil Service or Local Government pension schemes?

I've recently applied for both in Apr 2024 but both are suggesting that it takes several months to even acknowledge the requests let alone start processing it. Does that sounds about right? Civil Service say they need at least 4 months to process even those applications that are at normal pension age.

I just want to make sure this doesn't fall down a black hole like so many other things I've attempted to sort over the past year and have ended up having to restart.

many thanks

westv

Terrible. How can people make plans for their future if they don't actually know if expected income will come soon or in several months time.

Pat38493

I’ve seen quite a few posts on here from people trying to put their DB pension into payment (not necessarily only public service ones) saying it took many months to get it paid.

It often seems to take several months just to get a quote, and then another several months to start paying out.  That’s before you even consider that if they have made a mistake and are paying you too much (even after taking more than 6 months to try to get it right!) they can come back later and ask you to pay back some of the money.  Hopefully this happens rarely but again there has been one or two cases posted here.

katejo

ToneP said:

Hi, does anyone have recent experience in applying for early retirement under the Civil Service or Local Government pension schemes?

I've recently applied for both in Apr 2024 but both are suggesting that it takes several months to even acknowledge the requests let alone start processing it. Does that sounds about right? Civil Service say they need at least 4 months to process even those applications that are at normal pension age.

I just want to make sure this doesn't fall down a black hole like so many other things I've attempted to sort over the past year and have ended up having to restart.

many thanks

Wow! I am not yet applying for actual retirement but have requested a projection of what I will get if I wait until 65/66 (university superannuation SAUL). I can't use the SAUL online calculator because I paid  for AVC's for years. 

chubsta

I applied a couple of months back for early retirement in April 2024 as many colleagues have reported problems. Although my 'termination' has been recorded by my employer (home office), I received a letter from CSP saying it was too early to apply and I should do it with 6 months to go, which for me is the end of October. The response I got from them was actually very quick.

Lyncroft

I took my CS pension at 57 about a year ago, working for the CS at the time. I was told to give at least 4 months notice which I did. I had to do a lot of checking and chasing up, helped by HR. Everything turned out well which was a relief. Definitely make sure you're confident all your service, etc is correct and up to date before starting. You do hear horror stories, but my experience was okay. If the maximum notice you can give is 6 months, then I'd do that.

Kim1965

I put into payment a deferred lgps about a year ago. From application to payment was about 3 months. 

ToneP

Update,

Civil service have responded to my request for a quote based on taking a pension in late April 2024 to say "The next step in the process is for your case to be passed to our administration team, who will begin processing your quotation. We estimate this will be completed on or before 26/02/2024" !!!!

I'm astounded how it can take that long and how do they expect anyone to plan their finances without knowing the figures in advance?

Similarly the local government one have responded without giving any kind of timescale just that it's being processed but "We work on cases in strict date order and do have a lot of requests at the moment due to the Local Government Reorganisation that has just happened". Not sure why that should become my problem.

Frankly I'm staggered that these schemes think it's acceptable to take so long to provide a figure that can be generated at the click of a button. This is only to give me a quotation that I may or may not take, it doesn't include the time to implement the decision if I take them up.

It certainly doesn't fill me with confidence and I'll be going over the figures very carefully. When they eventually turn up.

westv

I am amazed too. As you say, it should just be a click of a button.

hugheskevi

westv said:

I am amazed too. As you say, it should just be a click of a button.

It is as simple as a click of a button, but only once you are sure the data in the record is correct and that is what can take the time. Remember this is a full retirement quote so has to be accurate, whereas annual benefit statements can use data with many more issues as they are only an indication of benefit entitlement.

If someone has worked full time for the same employer for a relatively short time, and carefully checked each annual benefit statement and queried any discrepancies, the record should be in good order and it should be a lot faster to issue the quote.

But if someone has had a long career and moved around employers a lot and made changes to their full time status, had periods of unpaid leave, maternity leave, etc, there may well be a number of potential discrepancies in the record. Some of the record from decades ago may contain image files which have to be manually accessed, or even fiche records. These need to be checked and queried with the current employer, who in turn will have to try to find payroll records from potentially decades ago from an employer which no longer exists. It may also be necessary to use the HMRC GMP checker if the record wasn't able to be reconciled in a past exercise, to see if anything further has come to light. Then there are the complexities created by the McCloud judgment which mean 2 quotes are necessary for affected members, so all the data required to calculate pension under two different schemes is needed.

 It is this checking which can end up taking months to enable a button to be pressed to calculate an accurate quote. 

55ryan

ToneP said:

Update,

Civil service have responded to my request for a quote based on taking a pension in late April 2024 to say "The next step in the process is for your case to be passed to our administration team, who will begin processing your quotation. We estimate this will be completed on or before 26/02/2024" !!!!

I'm astounded how it can take that long and how do they expect anyone to plan their finances without knowing the figures in advance?

Similarly the local government one have responded without giving any kind of timescale just that it's being processed but "We work on cases in strict date order and do have a lot of requests at the moment due to the Local Government Reorganisation that has just happened". Not sure why that should become my problem.

Frankly I'm staggered that these schemes think it's acceptable to take so long to provide a figure that can be generated at the click of a button. This is only to give me a quotation that I may or may not take, it doesn't include the time to implement the decision if I take them up.

It certainly doesn't fill me with confidence and I'll be going over the figures very carefully. When they eventually turn up.

Your request is in the future. They concentrate on current cases. I was told 4 months if I were applying to have the pension early now. Someone else in this thread thinks it is 'just a click of a button'. If only....