Does anyone understand Civil service pensions? I have to respond to a query and have no clue

[Vanfan]

Despite being relatively savvy in most areas I seem to have a blind spot when it comes to pensions.
I have already retired and receive a smallish but very valuable to me pension. My Civil service pension was a mixture of Premium and Alpha.I took a small lump sum and get my pension every 4 weeks.
Ive now been sent a benefit choices document from Civil service pensions which is asking me which of 2 options I want to pick, Premium or Alpha . I want to go for the one (alpha) which gives me more money now plus a nice little extra but is that wise?

Im hesitating because why are they even asking ? Surely nobody would choose the option to have nothing extra when offered it - or as I suspect have I missed a vital bit of information that means I will actually lose out in the future?

Can anyone help?

Is it to do with the McCloud remedy? I think I read that they were getting through the 'choices' stuff, starting with the already retired.

Have you logged into the pension portal? There's a lot of information in there.

@Vanfan as @Bjorkdidit said it’s the McCloud remedy.

What you need to do is look at the overall package. Your comparison of premium vs alpha is more straight forward as neither has an automatic lump sum. A key difference maybe the dependents pension.

Premium is 1/60th of final pensionable pay for each full year of service. I hope my maths is right which is 1.67%. Alpha is 2.32% of actual earnings in each year, so slightly better % if you worked full time. This will be why Alpha is a higher figure.

The reason you are being asked is because anyone in the pension scheme between the key dates will be asked.

Yes this is due to the McCloud remedy. Go on MCSP - should be info on this.

If you are really struggling to make sense of it I know the Civil Servants Charity can help.