Pension

[idontknow202]

I would be really grateful if anyone has any advice about a pension situation that has just come up thanks.
I've worked at the same school as support staff since sep 19 and joined the LGPS in Jan 2020 continuing until I got a promotion in September 2023 so now I just pay in a bit more.
I've been messaged by the council to say I have two pension records and would I like to combine them or keep them separate, I really know know what is best? It appears to be a career average pension so I'm thinking it's best to combine them as the longer I spend in my new role will boost my previous contributions?
It says I have until 11th of Jan to inform to keep them separate or it wil automatically change - any reason not top?

Thanks

check to make sure one is not a defined benefit scheme - it sounds like one - you don’t want to lose this. Can you have a meeting with your pension provider?

In your situation, where it’s all career average benefits, there’s no advantage to keeping the benefits separate so you may as well merge them. You won’t lose anything. I suppose the only benefit might be that keeping them separate gives you slightly more flexibility (you could draw the earlier benefit while still working on the other record) but given you were only in it for a couple of years before the promotion the amounts involved probably don’t make this worthwhile considering, so in your situation I would merge them.

The advice would be different if you had been in the LGPS before 2014 and had final salary benefits, but you don’t.

Oh and just to add that whether you merge or keep separate, anything you do (or don’t do) in future won’t have any effect on your earlier years - that’s the way career average works. Once it’s banked it’s banked and just goes up in line with inflation.

Check the details of what the old one was, what your salary was at the time and how many years were you a member.

If the terms of the old scheme were better you also need to find out whether its possible to reactivate the old scheme and transfer your newer contributions in, or whether they are only proposing transfer of your older contributions into a new scheme.

Older schemes tended to be Final Salary based. If you spent a long time there low-waged and then got a managerial promotion before retirement you could get a lot of money. Newer schemes are career average

If you were low waged before then you probably don't want to transfer the old contributions into the new scheme - that could have the effect of reducing your averaged pension, but either keeping them separate or reactivating the old scheme (if allowed) would be better.

None of this is relevant. OP hasn’t changed scheme, she’s just got two separate records in the same scheme from two different jobs. Therefore the terms applying to each record are the same so she won’t lose anything by merging them. It’s not a final salary scheme so the respective pay levels of each job are irrelevant.

Thank you for the advice. I will let it combine I think.
The amount within the first record is not much at all £1700 which is a bit feeble for 3.5 years but my job has increased hours each year within that and this new one is a pay grade higher so hopefully will eventually work out more!