If you are sacked you cannot lose your pension

[ineedastrongercoffee]

Why do people think that if you are sacked then you automatically lose your pension? That’s money that you have paid as part of your salary sacrifice. No matter what heinous crime you have committed if you have a pension it is yours. Full stop.

imagine how it would be used by unscrupulous employees to bully their staff with the threat of sack and losing their pension on top

Plenty of people lost their pensions when companies went bust/said they went bust on paper back in the old days. It's only relatively recently that there's been any meaningful protection in that scenario. Maybe that's why there's a perception that pensions are precarious - because for private sector workers, previously, they were. (Now they just pay out shit. Although you are pretty much guaranteed to get it )

I'd think of something like an actuary working out something. Maybe how much paid in each year x notional interest giving a lump sum.

No it does not happen in the US, where did you see or hear that except in those unique cases like police officers being dismissed for certain offenses etc?

The Environnent Agency pension is conditional on not bringing the agency into disrepute even in retirement. It's why I got screwed in a French divorce as xh didn't want to have a UK divorce for unreasonable behaviour including dv.

my point was there seems to be a general misconception that no matter what job you do if you get sacked then you lose your pension

Other than the police losing enhanced pension benefits, I have never hear of anyone thinking sacking meanings losing what you have paid into your pension.

Unless you are talking about people who have pension projections including future payments who are then confused when their projections reduce significantly (because they don't make the future payments).

Maybe they should lose the employer contribution in extreme circumstances, but they shouldn't lose the money they've had deducted from their salaries, which is often a higher percentage than a lot of private sector schemes.

Me neither, weirdly it seems more like someone finds it wrong that a violent rapist who actively used his role as a police officer to intimidate, coerce and stop his victims from reporting him is losing his pension and wants to start a conversation about it. Odd.

I suspect some of the wives are highly delighted with the outcome...

You can lose your NHS pension if you are sacked, but I think it has to be for something serious, gross misconduct or a criminal matter, rather than say losing your job on capability grounds.

I have always assumed that if someone loses their pension for disciplinary reasons, that they would get their contributions back

@Nimbostratus100 yes I assume so, it's not really a pension contribution in the same way as other schemes, I've been told to think of my contribution as a "subscription fee" of sorts, if you leave the scheme in the first 2 years in the CS you can get your contributions back (and be removed from the scheme).

Yes maybe they do. I don't know enough about pensions but that seems reasonable to me.

If you've committed fraud against your employer, some scheme rules do state that the employer can claw back any losses from your occupational pension. I used to work in pensions, only ever seen it done once.

I suppose it depends on circumstances. My husband was told he was being pensioned off due to illhealth when I had a 2 year old and a ten day old baby. If he'd been sacked rather than sick I think I'd have wanted/needed some money to pay the mortgage. Leaving me in a position where I'd lose my home would be punishing me and the children for whatever he might have done. Fortunately he never broke the law so it wasn't an issue for us but I would feel for another woman in that position although realistically I suppose she might have to wait years till he was pension age anyway, I hadn't thought of that.

I was about the post about the EA pension.
I was an EA manager until recently (still with EA, but moved to a technical role) and have been involved in gross misconduct investigations. Being sacked for GMC in the EA would loose you your pension, although I can't be sure if you lose both employer and employee contributions.

Not sure if it would be possible but one 'punishment' for police is to be reduced in rank, could that be done so the pension paid would be that of a more junior colleague?

Employer contribution is deferred salary, surely? It's part of the general package agreed when you sign the contract. General public isn't contributing except in the sense that public services are paid from public money. If pensions were lower, salaries would need to be higher to compete with private sector.

I don't agree with pension accrued being lost in any circumstances.