Does anybody understand the McCloud Remedy Period?

[Keepthecat]

I have been trying to decide what I should tell NICS Pensions Service to do for the seven years of the Remedy period. Nobody seems to be able to give advice - in fact the only way I was able to even understand what the question is was by asking Chat GPT to explain it. But I still don't know the answer.
Even a suggestion of someone I could talk to would be great. Someone who could look at my actual figures and explain what's the best thing to do, and why.

The problem is (my pension is affected by this) is that it's so individual. Mine is either (currently) a higher annual pension and a lower survivor's pension or the other way round; so it's what's important to you. I don't think the SPPA offers any advice either, it's very much make your own mind up - do you want a one off payment, higher annual pension, higher survivor's pension etc.

Can you get advice from Affinity through your work? I attended one of their seminars and it was really helpful

https://www.affinityconnect.org/

I thought that when you decide to retire they’re obliged to give two quotes. One with and one without. Then you just pick the better one. Am Civil Service and that’s my understanding. What do you have to decide now?

For me it will be the difference in retirement age, the older part of my pension is at 60 and 67 for the new part. So if I retire around 63 (when DH gets his state pension) rather than at 67 then I can avoid the actuarial reduction on an extra 7 years pension. It also changes my lump sum.
As a teacher (Scotland) I will pick the best option when I claim my pension not before. DH has already claimed his civil service pension and that’s when he had to do. There wasn’t much between the two so he took the one with the better survivors pension for me.

Are you on Facebook? - Understand your nhs pension is one forum with lots of useful info on.

Look at the nhsbsa pages.

Look at your personal estimates in your total rewards statement.

Don’t speak to a general pensions advisor - any advice needs to be from someone knowledgeable about the different NHS pension schemes and your choices under the remedy period.

💯 this. There are some very knowledgeable people on there. You can join and not comment.

I was able to sort out partial retirement just based on the comments on it. Starting from zero

Pengage is often mentioned on there, for specific pension advice.

NHS & Public Sectior Pensions Information page on facebook is very informative, lots of info on there. Mines also affected by the McCloud Remedy (NHS) but I’m struggling to get my head around it all!

You don't need to decide until you are ready to retire/retire and return.
I think they give you both options and then you can decide. The FB page is great www.facebook.com/groups/565069481354506/?ref=share

I’m civil service and also affected by McCloud. My understanding is that the difference is (as a pp said) the retirement date.

If you take the 7 years on the new scheme the annual amount is higher (well it is for me) but I can only take that from 67 and if I take it before then it’s actuarially reduced. If I take the 7 years in the old scheme then I can take the amount from 60 with no actuarial reduction but could also take it from 50 (albeit it would be reduced in half).

The way I got my head round it is: I’ll be retiring before state pension age and the bulk of my pension will be in my 1995 pension. I will choose the option that maximises the 1995 payment as opposed to the 2015, because I plan on claiming at 60.

Will you take your pension at 60 but actually retire at 63?

It might be different but NHS 1995 pension you should take at 60, no financial benefit to leave it in and you have then just lost out on 3 years.

I retired on my 68th birthday in 2024. I have 4 options which have been presented in the most obscure and unhelpful way by NICS Pension Service.

I retired on my 68th birthday in 2024. I have four options. The level of my incomprehensible is I can't even see if what I decide now affects the pension i already have or of it only affects that 7 year period. It's not even clear to me whether this affects my pension going forward. I just want income, no lump sum.

Not me but DH, he’s military, from everything we’ve read it seems like a no brainer to treat it on the old system for him, but we’ll get advice when the time comes, I’m assuming he will need to decide when he leaves the military when he’s done 20+ years as that’s when payment begins even though he’ll only be 40s. I did talk it through with AI but for different figures across each bot 🤣 (obviously wouldn't rely on AI!!)

It will depend, If I have read it correctly I will have to be part time to be able to take part of my pension. So it’s a balance on how I feel physically, if work agree I can go part time and 3 extra full year’s contributions to new part of pension. I may just go at 60 and do something less stressful for a few years.
Plan is to get some advice in the new year.

I’d like to know how this works for local government works. We haven’t been given any updates yet.

@Florencesndzebedee website here for England and Wales:

https://www.lgpsmember.org/mccloud-remedy/

It works the same way in Scotland and NI but the remedy period starts 1 April 2015 whereas it’s 1 April 2014 in E&W.

It works differently in LGPS compared to the other public sector schemes. In the LGPS there’s an underpin for the 7/8 years of the remedy period which means that for that period you must be given the better of final salary or career average benefits. Your pension fund should work this out for you automatically.

If you have already left/retired, you will probably only be written to if you are due an additional sum (very few people are because the rate at which pension builds up in the career average scheme is higher than in the final salary scheme). If you are still an active member you should see information about whether you have an underpin amount on next year’s benefit statement.

Thank you @ChessieFL. I’ll have a read. I have about 15 years service in the final salary part of my pension and the rest in the career average scheme.

It might dependent which pension scheme you were in and what your profession was. As others have said, there are amazing groups on Facebook. The teachers group I would recommend is called Teacher Pensions - Teacher to Teacher (UK)