Second Ill Heath retirement

50Twuncle wrote: »

I agree - in fact - I have a quote of only £865 !

How old are you? In particular, under 55 or not...?

Happier_Me wrote: »

OP, if you took ill health retirement nine years ago at the age of 47, that makes you 56. Most councils give you access to your pension unreduced if you are made redundant after you reach 55. Do you know exactly what's on offer in terms of your pensionip, if you take redundancy?

You are focussing on the redundancy payout only or a possible second ill health retirement when you may be being offered the equivalent of tier 3 ill health via an unreduced pension through redundancy!

Indeed, they aren't exactly the same thing, but it's part of the scheme rules that bog standard redundancies where the member is aged 55 or over lead to an automatic early retirement with no actuarial reduction (there's no employer discretion here). However, this involves an additional cost to the employer ('strain charge' paid to the pension fund), which will be factored into any offer of VR (or indeed decision to enforce CR).

50Twuncle wrote: »

I have asked for a quote for both and so far (over three weeks) have only received the redundancy quote

You should chase HR on that (they will have had to request the pension figures from the scheme administrator), though principle, the pension-to-date figure shown on your last annual benefit statement + 1/49 of your pay since will given you it.

I am assuming by "non-reduced" - they mean my contributions up to NOW - and not up to my NRD ?

Yes - 'unreduced' in the sense that if you left and drew the pension voluntarily at that point, you would have an actuarial reduction applied since your normal pension age in the scheme is some years hence, so the pension will be paid out a lot longer than intended.

However, not having an actuarial reduction is still 'unreduced' in a very material way - even with a (presumably) fairly short period of membership, if you would be drawing the pension 10 years early or something like that, then the strain charge could well be ten times the redundancy payment quoted.