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!!!

I didn’t join until 1999, and it was still the same for a number of years after that, just the WPS contribution, at 1.5% from what I remember. The percentage contribution has gone up two or three times since then. Honestly, so many people have weighed in with nonsense on this thread, despite the fact that people like you and me, who’ve been in the PCSPS for decades, have been giving the facts all along!

If you reduce your hours (and therefore your income) some years before you retire you can be better off in CARE. Of course it reduces costs overall but the majority of people are in a DC scheme which is not guaranteed at all.

If you reduce your hours (and therefore your income) some years before you retire you can be better off in CARE.

Or reduce your grade. Gives the option of stepping down to a less stressful job in the run up to retirement.

One of the benefits of Premium over Classic is that the final salary is best of the last ten years (uprated for inflation), rather than 3 years (I believe) in Classic, which does allow for more downgrading towards tail end of career.

There's been some good advice given here, but, OP, you need to speak with your pension provider. That, really, should have been your starting point.

One of the many arguments I’ve been having with Crapita for the last year.

I cannot get through to Capita!!

Your employer pays them to provide and service a pension scheme.

Advise your HR department that you have tried multiple times to reach them and that you need a meeting arranged on your behalf.

Very unlikely to work. I’m also in the CS and we’ve been advised that HR will intervene in severe hardship cases (such as unpaid pensions) but everyone else just has to wait. It’s a terrible failure from Capita.

That's outrageous.

Sorry I'm not in the UK so can't advice on the technicality but surely there's a pensions regulator or emplyment authority you can refer this to. Everyone has the right to their pension infirmation and access to those who administer it.

Aware of Crapita but it's still not good enough.

Various recent articles in CS Weekly Pension Crisis

Absolute shit show.

There was an article on BBC at the weekend I think, apparently there is a backlog of something like 86,000 requests/enquiries about civil service pensions. Dating back to before they took over the contract in December. So they are prioritising those with the most need. No idea on timescales, I have a family member recently retired who can't get her statement (worked for the CS a number of years ago).

Good luck getting through but might need a lot of patience

Capita have asked people not to call with non-urgent enquiries to enable them to get through the urgent ones more quickly (unpaid pensions, unpaid death in service payments). it’s better to use the enquiry form on the website but it will be months before you get a response.

The NHS pension backlog is also a disgrace . DH’s pension , despite 6 months notice , was three months late - no compensation

Yes, it makes sense. When you pay in additional contributions, it’s a bit like your salary increasing by that amount for that year. You realized that if your salary goes up you get more pension, right?

If your employer has their own intranet, they are likely to have a link under something like “pay and benefits” to the capita website, if you can register there you will find a pension illustrator, put your info in there and out pops your pension forecast!
I work in DEFRA thats how it works for us, hope it does for you too.