Question about police pensions

[vonhosen]

Red 4 said:

The other thing to remember with the police pension/ those who are planning to retire/ have recently retired is check out your State Pension entitlement.

If you were a member of a public sector pension scheme you'll have been contracted out and there's a good chance you won't have the required number of years (35 years now) contributions for a full State Pension.

Plus - Deductions are made from the number of years contributions you may think you've paid because you are/ were a member of a public sector pension scheme.

Von - I know you've recently retired. Check it out if you haven't already.

Perhaps sidicks can explain in more detail. It is complicated

I have checked it out & I continue to contribute in order to obtain the number of 'full years' required.
I'm also expecting the (goal posts) number of qualifying years required for full state pension to be increased again before I get there.

[Red 4]

vonhosen said:

I have checked it out & I continue to contribute in order to obtain the number of 'full years' required.
I'm also expecting the (goal posts) number of qualifying years required for full state pension to be increased again before I get there.

I'm glad you've checked it out.

The point I was trying to make is that 30 years paying into a Police Pension doesn't necessarily get you 30 years contributions towards a State Pension - deductions were made because it was a contracted out scheme.

I think everyone has been "Contracted In" for the last few years and people's contributions, if they had been paying into a public sector pension, were worked out/ decuctions made when the new State Pension rules were brought in.

Simply put - you may think you had 30 years contributions towards a State Pension but that might only be worth 22 years (or thereabouts) because you were a member of a public sector scheme.

Edited by Red 4 on Tuesday 27th February 15:26

[FiF]

Just to add, because of my own contracted out years, despite having forty odd qualifying years for SP, the calculation on the current state pension would be reduced from the full amount by nearly a hundred quid a week. Not sure how long this will last but they currently calculate which pays more based on your contribution record, new or old state pension. Mine is the old one, partly due to various bits and bobs of Serps, and all the other names under which it masqueraded.

Off topic but what particularly brassed me off was despite asking frequently for quotes the pension service was unable to answer questions and kept fobbing off the specifics, just relying on you'll definitely qualify for the full amount as you have x years already. When they could finalise a number, firstly they couldn't explain or justify the calculation method for the reduction, and secondly it was then too late to do anything about it. Shambles.

Ok I don't need that so much because of starting to make serious provisions in addition to any occupational schemes in my late twenties and keeping on upping the ante when various factors intervened, e.g. Gordon Bloody Brown for one, the git.