NHS McCloud remedy notifications?

hugheskevi

westv said:

Silvertabby said:

asimmoni said:

My wife is in a similar position for the Civil Service scheme - she retired in 2018. The civil service pension website always stated March 2025 as the date by which everyone would recieve their 'choices' paperwork. This has now subtely changed to state that they are beginning the process for retirees but it may take 2 years to complete! I find the delaying tactics are completely inappropriate - this remedy will be nearly 10 years old before people have an option to determine their choice of approach. Shame on Government who are clearly banking on individuals forgetting and/or passing away before they have to pay money that is due to their ex employees.

Do you have any idea of the work involved in all of this?

Those due to retire soon, quite rightly, have been prioritised over those of us who have already retired and are in receipt of our pensions.  The two years you have been quoted sounds very optimistic to me - I am expecting longer for such complex and time consuming procedure.

I am surprised most of it isn't automated. Employment record and pension record must be stored somewhere. If not electronically it should be.

Service and pensionable earnings should be available, there might be data issues, there usually are, but that is all routine.

The main problem is that a pension administration system is usually set up to calculate pension entitlement under one set of rules, not two. So you are into bespoke calculation arrangements trying to make systems do what they were not originally designed to do.

Then there are the number of past schemes to deal with - most of the big schemes have had 3 or 4 schemes in place for pension accrued between about 1995 and 2015. For each scheme the same thing will usually have slightly different rules, so bringing them all together is more complicated.

Within each scheme there is a huge variety of member actions - joining and leaving, part-time service, voluntary benefits, partial retirements, multiple service periods, etc. Some of these will not be worth automating due to low numbers, perhaps transfers, divorces, Scheme Pays debits, those sort of things. And HMRC decided to have a whole new Annual Allowance regime to deal with this which also required schemes to recalculate Pension Input Amounts for a 15 year period, far greater than the usual 4 year period that applies each year (current year and 3 years for carry forward).

So you are not only having to programme essentially a whole new pension scheme, you are having to do it with all the baggage of the past and then for many of the members calculate arrears and adjust pensions in payment. 

That is a huge IT challenge at the best of times, and pension admins are usually run on low margins, varying levels of automation and semi-automation, and don't start out with the best of tech anyway.

All of which means these are a series of major Govt IT contracts, and those usually don't go so well.

Sarahspangles

hugheskevi said:

That is a huge IT challenge at the best of times, and pension admins are usually run on low margins, varying levels of automation and semi-automation, and don't start out with the best of tech anyway.

All of which means these are a series of major Govt IT contracts, and those usually don't go so well.

Not McCloud, but still NHSBSA - and bearing this out. I requested Pension Input Amount figures and received these in the Summer. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had two further letters, the first to say the figures were wrong and ‘watch this space’ and the latest to say they’ll get new figures out shortly along with information about what to do if you’re now facing detriment due to acting on the original figures. There must have been some kind of audit as this was a ‘batch’ letter. 

kassy64

hugheskevi said:

kassy64 said:

Silvertabby said:

asimmoni said:

My wife is in a similar position for the Civil Service scheme - she retired in 2018. The civil service pension website always stated March 2025 as the date by which everyone would recieve their 'choices' paperwork. This has now subtely changed to state that they are beginning the process for retirees but it may take 2 years to complete! I find the delaying tactics are completely inappropriate - this remedy will be nearly 10 years old before people have an option to determine their choice of approach. Shame on Government who are clearly banking on individuals forgetting and/or passing away before they have to pay money that is due to their ex employees.

Do you have any idea of the work involved in all of this?

Those due to retire soon, quite rightly, have been prioritised over those of us who have already retired and are in receipt of our pensions.  The two years you have been quoted sounds very optimistic to me - I am expecting longer for such complex and time consuming procedure.

As I mentioned earlier some of my ex civil service colleagues (retirees) have been getting the offer packs dropping through their letterboxes in the last few weeks, so fingers crossed most will see their options within the next few months. 

Worth noting on the Civil Service pension website it says the exercise is expected to take up to 2 years, so it will take a lot more than a few months.

All I'm saying is that I can confirm that some ex colleagues have started to get their options packs in the last few weeks, so hopefully for the majority it will be sooner rather than later.

DJW2025

New dates have been posted today

Member Class	Number of members	RSS Extension
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly unprotected and only legacy benefits in payment	5,012	1 July 2025 (three months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly taper protected and only legacy benefits in payment	25,827	1 July 2025 (three months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly unprotected and both legacy and reform benefits in payment	14,376	1 October 2025 (six months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly taper protected and both legacy and reform benefits in payment	21,175	1 October 2025 (six months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly protected and benefits in payment for remedy period	241,233	1 December 2026 (20 months)
Retired between 1/10/23 and 1 July 2025	67,690	1 December 2026 (20 months)
Active	561,572	1 September 2025 (five months)
Deferred	144,076	1 September 2025 (fiv

Microbe65

Thanks DJW2025.

I retired May 2023, no protection and currently taking 1995 pension, so hopefully not too much longer to wait?

LazyGreyhound

DJW2025 said:

New dates have been posted today

Member Class	Number of members	RSS Extension
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly unprotected and only legacy benefits in payment	5,012	1 July 2025 (three months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly taper protected and only legacy benefits in payment	25,827	1 July 2025 (three months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly unprotected and both legacy and reform benefits in payment	14,376	1 October 2025 (six months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly taper protected and both legacy and reform benefits in payment	21,175	1 October 2025 (six months)
Retired by 1/10/23 – formerly protected and benefits in payment for remedy period	241,233	1 December 2026 (20 months)
Retired between 1/10/23 and 1 July 2025	67,690	1 December 2026 (20 months)
Active	561,572	1 September 2025 (five months)
Deferred	144,076	1 September 2025 (fiv

That's really interesting, thanks.

I take it given the thread title that's for NHS schemes? Does anyone know if there is an equivalent update for the Civil Service scheme?
I suspect there isn't, given MyCSP's policy of "Don't tell'em Pike!" 

hugheskevi

LazyGreyhound said:
I take it given the thread title that's for NHS schemes? Does anyone know if there is an equivalent update for the Civil Service scheme?

Immediate Choice members:
"We have agreed with Cabinet Office to issue the first cohort of RSS between 31 January and 31 March 2025. We anticipate the RSS will continue to be issued over a 2-year period."

Deferred Choice Underpin members:

"When members retire, they receive a choice of which pension scheme benefits they would prefer to take for the Remedy period. This is called a ‘deferred choice’."

Active members:

"This notice is further to EPN724 regarding provision of Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) and Remediable Service Statements (RSS) to members of the Scheme. It is relevant to Remedy affected members of the Scheme, who will now receive their RSS by 31 August 2025 along with their 2025 ABS."

LazyGreyhound

hugheskevi said:

LazyGreyhound said:
I take it given the thread title that's for NHS schemes? Does anyone know if there is an equivalent update for the Civil Service scheme?

Immediate Choice members:
"We have agreed with Cabinet Office to issue the first cohort of RSS between 31 January and 31 March 2025. We anticipate the RSS will continue to be issued over a 2-year period."

Deferred Choice Underpin members:

"When members retire, they receive a choice of which pension scheme benefits they would prefer to take for the Remedy period. This is called a ‘deferred choice’."

Active members:

"This notice is further to EPN724 regarding provision of Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) and Remediable Service Statements (RSS) to members of the Scheme. It is relevant to Remedy affected members of the Scheme, who will now receive their RSS by 31 August 2025 along with their 2025 ABS."

Thanks @hugheskevi, yes I'd seen that, but I was hoping that there might be a more detailed breakdown by tranche as @djw2025 provided above.
If I'm understanding that correctly I will be in the first tranche (retired 2021 age 52 only in receipt of Classic pension) IF all the schemes are adopting the same approach to prioritisation.

hugheskevi

LazyGreyhound said:
If I'm understanding that correctly I will be in the first tranche (retired 2021 age 52 only in receipt of Classic pension) IF all the schemes are adopting the same approach to prioritisation.

You sound like a Deferred Choice Underpin member, as you have only taken pre-2015 benefits and no Remedy period benefits (I assume you were moved to alpha in 2015 and your alpha benefits are currently deferred).

LazyGreyhound

hugheskevi said:

LazyGreyhound said:
If I'm understanding that correctly I will be in the first tranche (retired 2021 age 52 only in receipt of Classic pension) IF all the schemes are adopting the same approach to prioritisation.

You sound like a Deferred Choice Underpin member, as you have only taken pre-2015 benefits and no Remedy period benefits (I assume you were moved to alpha in 2015 and your alpha benefits are currently deferred).

hugheskevi said:

LazyGreyhound said:
If I'm understanding that correctly I will be in the first tranche (retired 2021 age 52 only in receipt of Classic pension) IF all the schemes are adopting the same approach to prioritisation.

You sound like a Deferred Choice Underpin member, as you have only taken pre-2015 benefits and no Remedy period benefits (I assume you were moved to alpha in 2015 and your alpha benefits are currently deferred).

That's correct.
Although I'm now old enough to claim the Alpha element, I originally thought I wouldn't bother as I was expecting the RSS to be issued by Apr 25 so it didn't seem worth complicating things as it's likely that I'll choose to stay in Classic.
However if the RSS isn't going to turn up for another 3mths/6mths/2yrs I will probably start claiming Alpha now.