Should I close/cancel old pension?

[CluelessAboutBiology]

Some years ago I had a second job, zero hours contract and was auto-enrolled into their pension scheme. As I didn’t work many hours, i very rarely earned enough to meet the threshold to make pension contributions. I’ve found my old payslips and in total I paid a whopping £8.62 in pension contributions!

I’m fairly sure that £8.62 won’t go far when I retire! It’s not worth having and it seems pointless wasting people’s time dealing with it. I’m thinking of writing to the pension company and asking them to close down the pension account and give the money to charity. ( The LGPS will only allow you to cancel and get your contributions back in the first two years, so I’m assuming that this pension scheme is similar, which is why I am not going to ask for a refund to be sent to me )

I’m early 50s, work full time in local government and have 30 years of membership of the LGPS, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get by in retirement without my £8.62.

Would I be foolish to ask the pension company to close the account and give the money to charity?

Legally, they cannot do that, so there really isn't anything to be gained by asking.

Your contributions will have grown. Just leave them be. As someone who worked in the sector, replying to your letter will take more time than your deferred pension does. When you reach retirement age you might find you get a few hundred quid you can choose to treat yourself to dinner out or give to charity, but they can't just close it because you ask them to

@FestiveFancy thank you, you’ve saved me the effort of finding their contact details!
I’m glad I asked.