Pension records are not correct

[Kelvingrove]

I have been trying to get my Local Government pension records corrected for nearly a year and each time I contact Pensions it just seems to be wrong again in a different way.

The most recent pension statement arrived this week and it has a start date 10 years after the actual start date but to make the pension amount correct the 10 years service before the start date is shown as less than full time. I am told this is to make the total correct. Am I right to be concerned?

I am not happy that the records are not correct but I don't seem to be getting anywhere. How can I escalate this? I can escalate it a bit further at work. Has anyone any other ideas about who to contact or how to get it sorted? I would appreciate any advice. We are all working at home and I think this is making it more difficult to communicate.

Your fund will have an Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure. Details should be on the Fund’s website or you can ask them to send you info. This is a two stage process and if you’re still not happy after that you can go to the Pensions Ombudsman.

Thank you. I will have a look for the dispute resolution process information. It is useful to know what I am looking for!

I had the same issue with my teaching pension. I calculated that I had about 11 years "missing" service. I went round and round in circles until finally I was told that part time or temporary service before 1997 didn't count - in fact you weren't allowed to pay into the scheme. That explained everything so I've now retired but with only 29 years service counting towards my pension.

I had 2 years missing from TPS at my previous school and it took them 3 years to correct it! I only succeeded as I held the equivalent of an after school sit-in in the Finance Office. The result was that it was all sorted before I went home.

I now regularly check my TPS and urge all teachers to do so. I think it is the same for all government pensions.

so hang on @Kelvingrove do not give up

OP I’m having trouble figuring out your post. Can you list the dates your statement shows and what you think it should be.

Polkadotties the OP is from a year ago so hopefully it’s been resolved by now!

Thanks ChessieFL. Your advice on the original post was really helpful. I contacted the Ombudsman service. The person I spoke to was really helpful and helped my clarify which dates I was disputing. I then found the dispute resolution process as you suggested and started phase one of the process. They took my concerns much more seriously after that and the issue is now resolved and the dates on my most recent statement have been corrected.

It was really helpful to know the correct process for escalating the problem. The other thing I learned was the importance of keeping my own file of documents and dates. I have always kept documents safely and it turned out that I had much better records than my employer.

Thanks again for the advice!

Glad it helped!

Great post!