Civil service pension - retirement model problems

Civvie1984

This is very strange indeed. As I said, the discrepancy is huge in my case, but at aged 40 I’m obviously no where near retirement! Has anyone tried calling them? Also, what email address are you using? 

Pastry_John

Civvie1984 said:

This is very strange indeed. As I said, the discrepancy is huge in my case, but at aged 40 I’m obviously no where near retirement! Has anyone tried calling them? Also, what email address are you using? 

MyWork.Prod.Outgoing@mycsp.co.uk (this was the one I used to follow up on the original reply i received), alternatively try - ContactCentre@mycsp.co.uk

Civvie1984

The modeller is now showing £5k more than it was, but still way too low. Something weird is going on with it clearly. 

Julezy101

I'm sure my tax free amount is wrong using the new modeller compared to the previous one when I checked a few months ago. Looks like they have a lot of issues to resolve with it.

sandpie

Civvie1984 said:

This is very strange indeed. As I said, the discrepancy is huge in my case, but at aged 40 I’m obviously no where near retirement! Has anyone tried calling them? Also, what email address are you using? 

I've been wrangling with them since last Feb after requesting a quote with a view to taking my pension early last April. There was a major discrepancy between the quote provided and the amount I expected, based on the modeller, ABS statements and previous calls with them to check forecasts. We are still nowhere near resolving the issues. I call them every few weeks - it takes ages to get through and when you do, the call handlers are all very pleasant and helpful but are only empowered to send emails to 'escalation managers' who then send an email a few weeks later apologising for the delay and thanking me for my patience. It seems impossible to speak to anyone directly about specific issues. The complaints system seems bust too - they have absolutely not adhered to their own policies in terms of the service they give. I get that they must be overwhelmed with the McCloud remedy recalculations but it is utterly dementing. 

TheSpectator

Julezy101 said:

I'm sure my tax free amount is wrong using the new modeller compared to the previous one when I checked a few months ago. Looks like they have a lot of issues to resolve with it.

I can't see them doing much to resolve it given the administration of Civil Service Pensions will transfer over to Capita in September.

Bravebart

sandpie said:

Civvie1984 said:

This is very strange indeed. As I said, the discrepancy is huge in my case, but at aged 40 I’m obviously no where near retirement! Has anyone tried calling them? Also, what email address are you using? 

I've been wrangling with them since last Feb after requesting a quote with a view to taking my pension early last April. There was a major discrepancy between the quote provided and the amount I expected, based on the modeller, ABS statements and previous calls with them to check forecasts. We are still nowhere near resolving the issues. I call them every few weeks - it takes ages to get through and when you do, the call handlers are all very pleasant and helpful but are only empowered to send emails to 'escalation managers' who then send an email a few weeks later apologising for the delay and thanking me for my patience. It seems impossible to speak to anyone directly about specific issues. The complaints system seems bust too - they have absolutely not adhered to their own policies in terms of the service they give. I get that they must be overwhelmed with the McCloud remedy recalculations but it is utterly dementing. 

I feel your pain. I've had exactly this and I expect there are thousands of others. I wrote to them nine times and phoned eleven times and finally, by pure chance, I spoke with a competent member of staff that told me why my quotes were complete garbage. Once they admitted their mistakes from then on the whole process was quite brisk. All I can say is don't give up. Keep a log of your efforts and use it to complain.

Before I retired I looked a calculators on the pensions portal and there was one for early retirement. The files are protected and with hidden sheets but when opened in Google Sheets it revealed parts the public aren't meant to see, including this statement "This sheet is intended to be used by ADMINISTRATION staff as a backend tool.  It is not expected that this will be exposed to the public users.  This tool was developed quickly and include a lot of redundant code that was left in so as not to break existing functionality and so speed up the development process.  This should be backed out at some point in the future." It's not surprising that tools that are developed quickly may not work!

I don't see the management of public sector pensions improving any time soon. The companies that get the contracts have lots of nice corporate bragging on their websites about how many pensions they administer and alleged money saving, but they don't tell you have many complaints they have. The NAO published a scathing report in 2016 about C(r)apita and the civil service pension. Capita claimed they inherited poor records, which is probably true, but they also handed over poor records. The current provider (myCSP) is soon replaced by Capita again which beggars belief, considering they've recently lost the teachers pension scheme. The Cabinet Office know what's going on but continue to put pensioners through this nightmare.

Littletinks

I’m in the 2% of existing CS staff who is yet to receive my 2023/24 ABS, which is quite frustrating in itself - I have never purchased any extra pension or added years. It now looks like I won’t receive one until this years are produced, as the update states:

Why have I not received notification that my Annual Benefit Statement (ABS) is available to view on the portal or I have not received my ABS?

There are a number of members (under 2% of those due to receive an ABS) who will not receive a 2024 ABS.    

This applies to members affected by Remedy with a Deferred Choice Underpin (DCU) and who:

• Purchased EPA/EEPA during any of the Remedy period (1 April 2015 - 31 March 2022)
• A sub-set of members affected by data issues who we are unable to process at this time

We have reported this to the pensions regulator and apologise for the inconvenience.  Members will receive a 2025 ABS combined with their Remediable Service Statement (RSS).      

Please note; if you are planning to retire this will not impact your retirement. You will receive your Remedy retirement quotation and you can follow the normal retirement process.

However, MYCSP dashboard is now showing a start date of 1 Nov 2012, rather than July 2003, added to which the modeller is giving the same outputs for both option A and B (I was previously in Premium) which appear to be a lot lower than the previous modeller showed. I’ve emailed and phoned twice since Nov, regarding the model and dashboard dates. They advised I shouldn’t worry about the dashboard date as they hold the correct date. As for the modeller, the guy tried to suggest it might be because ‘there’s probably an only a few pounds difference between the two options so it hasn’t registered’. I told him that’s not possible as I’m eligible to retain more Premium pension due to the McCloud judgment. He said he would tell back office and it will be sorted within a few days. I’m still waiting but appreciate staff are just be returning from the Christmas break. I’ll chase again a few weeks if still not resolved. 

Suzycoll

Civvie1984 said:

Hi all - I’m really new to this forum, and as a heads up I’m also a bit green when it comes to pensions. My query is whether anyone has noticed anything a bit odd with the retirement modeller on MyCSP. I tend to look at it a couple of times a year to scope out my retirement options, and previously it was showing something like a healthy £30k per annum if I retired at 55, and really healthy if I dragged the cursor all the way to aged 75. Now it is showing much, much less than that. I’m an existing civil servant, I’m aged 40 and have been in the civil service scheme for circa 12 years. So I’ve got a bit of NUVOS and now I’m on Alpha. My latest ABS shows circa £16k on Alpha and circa £5k on NUVOS. But, and this is where I reveal myself to be a bit green, I understand this to be my pension if I don’t add anything further, which is why it increases every year in the ABS, in my case by around £3k. The retirement modeller assumes - as I thought anyway - that I’d carry on contributing up to the date I retire (as chosen in the model), hence it looked pretty healthy. But ever since the option A and B thing was added, my pension is showing a lot less. For example, if I say I will retire at aged 75 and take zero lump sum, it is only showing £27k per annum. As I said, that is a lot lower than it was showing previously, which has really got me worrying. Has anyone else experienced this, or is it possible I’m just reading the mode wrong? Thanks so much. 

Hi
Yes I tried to use the retirement modeller today. 
It's obviously not working properly.

I can't comment on your particular query sorry 

Julezy101

TheSpectator said:

Julezy101 said:

I'm sure my tax free amount is wrong using the new modeller compared to the previous one when I checked a few months ago. Looks like they have a lot of issues to resolve with it.

I can't see them doing much to resolve it given the administration of Civil Service Pensions will transfer over to Capita in September.

I'm in no rush - although I'm retiring in March 2026 I wont be accessing it till March 2029. It was a lot more than I was expecting so if that is correct then I'll be happy :-)