Civil Service Pension Statement 2025

Thethinwhiteduke777

Hi members

I have just retired and am waiting for Capita to finalise my pension. I did not receive a Civil Service Pension Statement for 2024 but the 2025 statement provided after I agreed my pension options states Classic grew £485k and Alpha £200k for the year which would give me a tax liability of about £240k.

Since they have got my initial pension quote wrong and my 2026 ABS wrong I have little faith in anything they say.

Alpha is a career average scheme with a 2.32% accrual rate, I cannot reconcile this figure with my understanding of the calculation. My calculations indicate that I accrued roughly £2,300 of annual pension; applying HMRC’s valuation factor of 16 which would produce growth of approximately £36,800. The other example I find online is an NHS consultant who earns £120,000 should expect a Pension Input Amount of £42,000. To be clear I have never been paid as much as this salary.

Classic I have been a member of for 27 years and yes I did get a pay rise above inflation due to a promotion but find it impossible to reconcile these figures.

It does not say so but is this growth over all the years of the remedy rather than one year?

Grateful if anyone has any ideas or suggestions who I can contact. I accept I have breached the allowed Pension Input Amount but not by the suggested figures

Many thanks

horsewithnoname

capita and MyCsp before them often got these wrong, you might try contacting your MP, but capita are in a dire state and hard to get any sense out of.

Isthisforreal99

Do remember the increase in lump sum needs to be accounted for.

What are the balances on your 2023 annual statement? Are you comfortable posting 2024 and 2025 pensionable pay figures?

hugheskevi

Alpha is a career average scheme with a 2.32% accrual rate, I cannot reconcile this figure with my understanding of the calculation. My calculations indicate that I accrued roughly £2,300 of annual pension; applying HMRC’s valuation factor of 16 which would produce growth of approximately £36,800. The other example I find online is an NHS consultant who earns £120,000 should expect a Pension Input Amount of £42,000. To be clear I have never been paid as much as this salary.

The usual explanation for figures like this is that the administrator applied the calculation of closing value minus starting value plus inflation adjustment, then took the difference to produce the growth. When absurdly high numbers are generated it is almost always due to the starting value being incorrectly set at zero for some reason and so the value of your entire pension is recorded as the input for the one year.

How even the most basic automated checks don't identify a spurious result and error out, I have no idea, but it has been an infrequently recurring issue over many years.

If your accrued Classic pension is around £30,000 p/a from Normal Pension age (60) and your alpha pension about £12,500 p/a from Normal Pension age (State Pension age) that will be the reason.

It does not say so but is this growth over all the years of the remedy rather than one year?

No, it is only the growth in the referenced financial year. The growth in the Remedy period was set out on Remedial Pension Saving Statements with inputs for years from 2010/11 to 2022/23.

Your next step is to ask Capita to send you the completed calculation shown at the link above. Be prepared for a fight, being ignored, and a lengthy wait. Unfortunately, pension administrators send pension input data to HMRC so it is something that you need to get put right.

Thethinwhiteduke777

Thanks everyone who has taken the time to reply. The long version of the story is I asked for a quote in March received one in July with an incorrect length of service. A revised quote with the correct length of service was provided the day before I retired, which I have provided my options. Thereafter this Pension Saving Statement arrived which was a surprise with the amount of growth. I am reluctant to finalise my pension without the option of scheme pays taking a reduction in pension as this would wipe out the lump sum and any savings

I have contacted my HR Shared Services for my P60's as the figures I have on the HMRC app do not provide the pensionable pay figure.

I did complete adjustments for the remedy period submitted to HMRC which reversed some payments from my pension to HMRC. My theory was that the figures for the whole period had been re-worked and this was the revised total for the period but maybe not.

I have contacted Capita for a breakdown of figures but have received no acknowledgement beyond the standard automatic reply.

I think part of the problem is that I do not have a 2024 ABS or the Pension Saving Statement for 2024. Capita ust have the basis of the calculations.

Do you judge it worth me consulting a specialist accountants which advertise online for them to calculate and pay HMRC an amount? I think it will be hard without all the figures

My thanks for all your time

chuffinnora

My wife doesn't have a copy of her 2024 ABS or previous years either. The 2025/26 one has most of her pension missing (Deferred Classic). In hindsight we now regret not downloading a copy. I wonder if Crapita have any intention of uploading the previous ABS's or will try and get away with saying they are lost. I believe its in their list of "To Do" but not sure we have any confidence in that.

horsewithnoname

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82178710#Comment_82178710

quite a few colleagues have their 2025 statements put on the website and they just seem to be a copy of the info from the MyCsp version. Not everyone has them though, it all seems very random if stuff is on there. I’m still waiting for them to get their act together before I log onto it 🙄

hugheskevi

I have contacted my HR Shared Services for my P60's as the figures I have on the HMRC app do not provide the pensionable pay figure.

I doubt this will be of very much use, as the figures in the Pension Saving Statement are calculated using final pensionable earnings for Classic, as defined in the rules, rather than pensionable earnings in the scheme/tax year.

I did complete adjustments for the remedy period submitted to HMRC which reversed some payments from my pension to HMRC. My theory was that the figures for the whole period had been re-worked and this was the revised total for the period but maybe not.

All pension inputs were recalculated for the RPSS, and then PSS from 2024 onwards had all necessary corrections included in them, so will not affect these figures.

Do you judge it worth me consulting a specialist accountants which advertise online for them to calculate and pay HMRC an amount? I think it will be hard without all the figures

No, simply because an advisor will treat the Pension Input figures from the scheme as the correct figures, and simply query them with the scheme if they appear erroneous. You can do all of that yourself so they would be adding no value until the scheme provides accurate Pension Input figures.

It would be prudent to consider registering for self-assessment if you do not already submit self-assessment, and if this issue has not been resolved by the self-assessment deadline you can submit an estimated charge which you can then later revise when correct figures have been supplied.

horsewithnoname

for the classic scheme your “final salary” is usually the actual pensionable pay - at full time rate - that you received in the 12 months immediately before retiring. If you had anything that raised your pay in the final 3 years, like a temporary promotion or pensionable allowances, then it is slightly different. But for most, it is your last 12 months pay, at full time rate.