Taking all of your pension from today

[Dowser]

Apparently the rules change today.

You can have all of your pension pot and put it where you like but you need to watch out that you won't be stung for tax.

Are civil servants ( or people who were civil servants but haven't worked for many years) allowed to take their pension pot at the age of 55.

I'm asking this question on behalf of a relative who reaches 55 in September.

No, she may be able to start to draw her pension but as it is an occupational scheme she will not be able to take it all out in one lump. The public sector schemes are mostly unfunded and so there is no big fund of money from which to make lots of transfer payments.

THe rules only apply to DC pensions, not DB
as in DB pensions there is no personal pot - even in the funded ones like LGPS

Civil Servants can take their pensions out before their occupational pension age though but they will get less, normally you lose 5% of your pension for each year it is taken before pension age. If your relative is in an older civil service pension scheme then the pension age is likely to be 60 in which case they can take their pension age any age from 50 onwards, losing a maximum of 50% - at 55, they will get 75% of what they'd get at 60.

Newer Civil Service pension schemes have ages higher than 60 but given the age of your relative it is likely theirs is one of the older schemes.

Should probably clarify, I am talking about reductions to the annual amount - as has already been said, there isn't a 'pension pot' in Civil Service pension schemes - there may be a lump sum depending on which scheme your relative is in.

Thanks for the help. I maybe should have mentioned she worked for the welsh office.

She tried to find out what she was entitled to in January but was told to ring back on her birthday ( that's September ).

She may be able to transfer the value of her defined benefits to a different provider and then I think that she may be able to access the value of the pot. The usual advice is not to do this though as defined benefit schemes are the "gold plated" schemes that everyone wishes they had.

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/transferring-out-of-a-defined-benefit-pension-scheme

Lorn
Not possible with Civil Service pension - and NEVER worth it as the scheme is currently DB : nothing beats a DB scheme.

I'm not sure what pension scheme would be applicable to the Welsh office, it's normally the time at which you join the CS that defines which pension scheme you're in but can't say for certain as I'm not a long standing civil servant.

If your relative knows which scheme they are in, they can get info from the website in the below link about the different schemes but will need to know which one they are in - I am sure that this could be confirmed via telephone even if they can't tell her what she is entitled to. Classic and premium are the older schemes, it's likely to be one of those unless they have chosen partnership
www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/