My pension is worth NOTHING

[RosieBright]

I had a job for 13 years in Government and kept thinking it was a great pension as folk kept telling me. I looked at my pension paperwork when the annual statement came through and I have £9000.
I thought that was A YEAR!!! But no, it's worth about £30 a month 😱
How can I boost this? I need anoth £100K to even have half a decent pension

Help!!!

Bloody hell, this thread is really hard work.

I have skim read and am confused. I have a local government pension, defined benefit. No fund. I only worked there 4 years -when I left in 1982 I was earning approx £4000. My pension age 60 is £1300 per annum plus a lump sum of £3000. My contributory private pensions a mixed bunch. One had no scheme and

I don’t see how anyone could expect a great pension for only 13 years of contributions. My teaching pension is not ‘great’, being £948 per month, although I taught all my life, retiring at 60, sadly just before teachers got a big pay rise, which would have greatly increased my pension. I did have some part time years when the children were small . Just putting to bed the widespread belief that public sector workers are very well off, but at least the amount is guaranteed whereas people with private pensions are at the mercy of the markets when they have to invest their pension funds. As others have said, the OP needs to provide more info.

Perhaps if you read past the first post some of your fears to rest. There is no need to worry.

🙄 OP provided the details. She will get £9k a year.

What a painful thread.

There are things about civil service pensions that you don't hear about, for example they pay lower NI contributions for you, and you pay less NI too- which means your state pension is smaller than you expect. Your government pension is directly related to the hours you work and the grade you earn at, they are most often far more modest than people imagine.
The government has downgraded the civil service pension 3 times in the last 20 years, because the public feel civil service pensions are too generous- it's an erroneous belief for all but the very highest grades.
My partner put more than 30 years in- he wanted the full 40 years to get the best pension- but after the downgrading I worked out that if he retired at 63 instead of 57 it would only give him about £1500 a year more- with the stress he was under and naturally declining health it would be insanity to work those years with the wear and tear they would cause for a tiny amount extra.
It's worth really looking at the projections for your pension and make sure you understand what it means and how it will grow, and factor in the lower state pension- which they don't tell you about, my partner should have a full state pension because he has worked 40 years but it is 25% less, which they never told us which was very shady indeed.

they pay lower NI contributions for you, and you pay less NI too- which means your state pension is smaller than you expect.

No longer true. That used to be the case, but it ended years ago and almost everyone affected by this who hasn't yet reached state pension age will have made up the difference in the years since.

Your first paragraph is completely wrong. This haven't been the case for years and it never affected the main state pension only SERPS.
Again, why contribute to the thread with out of date information that you dont even have correct anyway.

Oh god I hope he hasn’t taken your advice and retired early!

You are completely wrong, what I am talking about has nothing to do with SERPS- which doesn't even apply to civil service pensions. Why are you responding when you don't even know civil service pensions are under completely different rules to company pensions? They have always been under different rules- I notice you don't say what rules do apply- why waste your time spouting nonsense?

Titchy is not wrong. The reduced NI payments for people paying into public sector pensions affected the SERPS part of the state pension calculation, not the basic part.

When the new style state pension came in in 2016, everyone in the previous pension who had not yet started drawing the state pension had their 'transferred value' calculated to give a starting point for their new state pension calculations.

All NI payments from then on were standardised - no reduced level for people in public sector pensions - so those who continued working gradually levelled up and most will now get the full new state pension.

Has anyone else found it impossible to get a pension out of a private pension scheme? I had about 4 private pension schemes and when I reached retirement age I contacted all of them to request a monthly pension but all of them have requested a mass of original verification documents even though I have an online account with them and instead of giving me the option of receiving a pension sum they all want me to sign up to another financial option.

if you have online accounts with these 4 pension providers, you will have validation of your holdings with them. Contact each of them using whatever helpline they publish, and ask them to calculate a projection of what you will get in the form of a pension, which will involve them basing it on an actuarial calculation (prediction of lifespan),

The pensions are normally either:

defined benefits (based on your final salary and years of service) or

defined contributions based on the payments you made through however many years you worked for the employer (not sure why you bought 4 separate private pensions - maybe I've misunderstood that bit), which normally gives you a lump sum and the opportunity to buy an annuity which then pays out an amount each month as your pension.

get each company to issue their projection by post so you can sit and go through the options they propose. Pensions can be quite confusing but it's best to have it in writing rather than them throwing you all the facts which can be overwhelming.

True. So much rubbish posted on this thread. I had to work slightly longer than standard years for state pension because of this, but my state pension will be the full amount I've checked. People quoting their own Civil Service pension amounts. Pointless! It all depends on how much your salary was in the first place!

Well that's not what the Civil Service Pensions group told us in 2017, it may not be true now , but anyone with more than 5 years service will be affected.

9k a year for 13 years of service, for people moaning that LGS are not as good as they were, on the assumption that OP was on approx 35k per year and was employed between 2005 - 2018, to get the same in a private scheme, you would need 30%+ in pension contributions, (assumes 4% growth) probably more, as LGS are guaranteed & inflation protected.

I know many, many people employed by the local government, and those who are not, guess which cohort is generally looking to retire at 55?

@Laurmolonlabe you are wrong about NI.

Any company, not just public sector, had the option to pay reduced NI provided their pension scheme paid the equivalent or more of SERPS. It wasn’t restricted to the Civil Service or public sector.

In 2016 the new state pension was introduced and everyone had to start paying full NI. A reconciliation was done giving everyone a personalised state pension rate which became the starting rate for their new state pension. This meant those who were contracted out, quite rightly, often had a lower starting rate.

If you're going back to work with them sometimes you can buy extra years might be worth looking into

When the eff did I mention ‘substandard’…whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Here

I wish the industry had never started using the expression "gold-plated".

I think it's supposed to mean that they are often (to an extent) inflation-proofed and they are backed by the govt, so are extremely reliable. However lots of people think it means a huge amount of money, which is not true.

I will get a "gold-plated" pension of £5k pa from 18 years of part-time work. I'm not complaining because I understand the deal, but calling it gold-plated gives the wrong impression.

@Gall10 you used 'substandard' first, but without looking it up I'd suggest it means the quality of an object or service is below what would reasonably be expected.

I understand what you mean.

The Index Linking is extremely valuable which is why I think they are called “gold plated”. For those who don’t realise, index linked pensions typically go up each April based on the previous Septembers CPI.

For example September 2025 CPI was 3.8% so my pension will go up in April 2026 by 3.8%. In September 2022 CPI was 10.1% and that is the uplift I got in April 2023. I am exceedingly grateful for my pension and always regarded it as a good benefit.

'Gold-plated' I would imagine, is a term coined by politicians or journalists for sensation. It sounds good, " Useless Chief Constable Whatshisname with his 6 figure salary, chauffeur driven car and gold-plated pension...."

It doesn't help people understand, but then again, taking your £5k as an example, people wont understand that their £5k is fixed, with no increases, no guarantees, no spouses pension, while yours likely has all of those things. So your £5K pa is worth more like everyone else's £12k pa as their income will reduce for every one of those options they select.

No such thing when this happened