Mitzyboy

Straight question. Are there any retired Civil Servants on here. If so, are they in receipt of their full State Pension in addition to their CS Pension, or have they had their State Pension drastically reduced. I think the full state pension at the moment is around £97 a week.

Thanks

Chiclanagir

There is no reason why you should have your state pension reduced for having a civil service pension. You just won´t get extra like graduated pension.

CLR

I am not retired or a civil servant but -

You sound like a man on a mission - something wound you up?

Mitzyboy

Just received an ambiguous letter from HMRC re my wifes pension which seemed to intimate that they were cutting her pension by £40 odd a week because she had opted out of SERPS at some point and had a private pension.

jdr

Sounds about right, they seem to change the goalposts and when you find out it`s too late to do anything about it. ;-(

Mitzyboy

Plus the fact the wifes state pension, due yesterday, has not been paid into the bank!

Chiclanagir

She should still get the basic state pension if she has paid enough stamps in her working life time. With regard to SERPS, you cannot have it both ways. If you pay into a private pension then you opt out of SERPS and get the benefits of the private pension on top of your state pension. If it is a civil service pension then she will have a much better return than with SERPS including a tax free lump sum. Has she been a civil servant all her working life? Perhaps at some stage she wasn´t and paid into SERPS so this part should be added.

Chiclanagir

I find the annoying thing is that you have to wait at least 4 weeks after your birthday to receive the pension, you never catch up until you are dead.

jdr

Mine was late being paid, but I am sure it was back dated to the first thursday after my birthday. Some crazy rule that it can`t be paid on a Monday.

Just checked my birthday was the 15 Oct and got my first weekly payment on 20th.
You should of opted to be paid weekly. ;-(

Mitzyboy

Most of her life, yes. HMRC class the CS pension as private of course. Another letter from pensions today and this one says her additional state pension should have been £42.95, but because she was opted out its only £1.73

Thing I need to check now somehow is that her private pension is increased in some way because of this

That would explain it then! Having it paid 4 weekly is a pain tbh

Chiclanagir

On my form there wasn´t an option to be paid weekly. Perhaps it is because we are in Spain and therefore wouldn´t have the option to collect it from the Post Office. Back to the Additional State Pension, I don´t know why they would quote an amount if your wife was opted out of SERPS for the civil service pension. I was opted out for three different private pensions, one of which was a small Police pension. I therefore get these rather than SERPS.

jdr

It took me three sets of forms to get mine, first set they lost, second set was stuck in the system, so the third I eventually did it on line and had to give my number over the phone to IP so they could do it faster for me, all forms I filled in had the option of weekly or monthly.

Chiclanagir

So if you are paid weekly are you paid still into the bank?

jdr

Yes.

scampicat

i THINK IT MEANS THAT IF SHE HAD NOT HAD THE cIVIL sERVICE pENSION, SHE WOULD HAVE GOT £40 EXTRA ON HER sTATE pENSION from SERPS (S2P).

As it is, her Civil Service Pension should at least equal that (£40) and is probably much better.

She should get the full £95 a week State Pension plus her Civil Service Pension, plus any odd bit of SERPS (if any) that she may have accrued earlier.

I will be in a similar position as I have a Local Government Pension awaiting me as well as my State Pension. I only have about £3 in SERPS.

Whoops, sorry about Capitals!!