Lancashire County Council pension - confused!

[PensionConfused]

Hi all,

I've name-changed for this as my level of ignorance is embarrassing!

I'm 62. I'm entitled to state pension at 67.

I'm currently employed in a higher-education establishment and have an LCC pension. I'm doing an admin role and earn about £28k. Previously, when I had a different and professional role, I worked for another Lancashire institution and had a final salary scheme pension, which is better than the one I have now. When I left that role (2008) I was on about £50k.

When I moved to my present employment (9 years ago) I didn't look into trying to transfer my original pension into my new one (if you see what I mean). I believe I must therefore now have two separate pensions with LCC: the old one (the better one) and the new one.

Recently my manager pointed out that it's possible to take LCC pensions from age 55. Now I'm wondering whether I should try to do something with the original pension. I am so naive about this whole thing (I worry about money, so tend to have my head in the sand) that I was just waiting for 67 to retire and see what would happen next.

I'm going to look for an independent financial advisor to help me to work out what is best, but in the meantime is it obvious to you knowledgeable people here how all of this will work out? Might I be able to draw on the original pension now (and maybe even get some kind of lump sum)? Will the value of the original pension be increasing with time, or will it be stagnant?

I do realise these are very naive questions but I'd be very grateful for any advice from those of you who understand these things.

BTW I have an appointment with my bank (Nat West) next week for a financial health check. I'm planning to ask whether they have financial advisors, but if they do I'm not sure whether they'd be properly independent/the best place to go for advice.

Very many thanks for any guidance.

Why see a financial advisor when you can get impartial advice from your pension scheme ?

your employer also runs courses which are really helpful

drawing down your pension now would be really costly in terms of the deduction which would he made

Have you tried LCC HR/Payroll? They aren’t brilliant, but they might be able to answer basic questions. That will give you a starting point for an IFA to assess your pension holdings.
Sympathies, LCC certainly don’t make their pension details clear and accessible and the company administering them seems to change regularly! So if you’re finding it confusing, it’s probably not just you

What is the retirement age on your original LCC pension scheme? It could be anything from 60 - 67. Your new scheme (which is more likely to be career average rather than final salary) might also be a different retirement age.
DH has a small historic LA pension, which I think he gets at 65. His final salary pension from a different employer has been paying out since he turned 60. He left their employment 20 years ago. He's 63 now and still working in another job and paying into a defined contribution scheme which he can tap into whenever he choses to retire.
Every pension scheme is different - including those from the same employers as the old, expensive schemes closed and new terms were set up.
I would initially speak to whoever deals with pensions at LCC and find out the terms of each scheme. Then speak to Pension wise (or whatever they're called now) for free advice.

Without knowing the details of the previous pension you can't know there's a reduction, or if taking it at 62 is early.

OP, your bank will have a financial advisor but they won't be independent and won't be pension specialists. They perticularly wont be specialists in public sector or final salary pensions. LCC will be a better starting point. Ask them whether you do indeed have 2 pensions, how much eachbis worth, and what the normal pension ages are for each one (normal pension age is the 'expected' retirement age, at which you can take the full pension; there is also likely to be an earlier age at which you can take the pension but at a lower annual amount to account for the fact that you are taking it early).

Pension wise unfortunately don't cover defined benefit (final salary and similar) pensions.

Thank you very much, everybody. All that info is very much appreciated.

I'll contact LCC 👍

The pension will have been increasing since you left that employer, so you don’t need to worry that you are missing out on value.

The pension scheme administrator would normally write to you a few months before the normal retirement date that applies to you so (assuming they have up-to-date contact details for you) if you haven’t received anything that would suggest that your normal retirement date hasn’t arrived yet. A quick google suggests that the normal retirement date for LCC pensions is age 65, for people who stopped building up benefits in the scheme before 2014.

If you were to start taking your pension before your normal retirement date, it would probably be reduced to reflect early payment (but that is not always the case, especially if you are within a few years of the normal retirement date, so worth checking!). And if you start your pension late, it would normally be increased to take account of late payment.

You would normally be able to take up to 25% of your total available pension as a tax-free lump sum at retirement (obviously this would leave you with 75% of your total pension, so your monthly pension payments would be lower than if you didn’t take a lump sum).

In any case, getting in touch with LCC is definitely the right first step! Good luck getting it sorted 😊

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage This is fantastically helpful! Thank you ❤️

You should get a yearly statement from LCC which states how much pension you’ve accumulated and when you can take it. I can take my LGPS at 57 (10 years before state pension age of 67) but I get less for each year I take it early.

Depending on how long you were in the scheme for you earlier pension could be payable now unreduced.

@PensionConfused it’s LPPA you need to contact - they’re the administrators for the Lancashire Pension Fund (Local Government Pension Scheme). They will be able to confirm if you have two records with them (it’s not clear from your post if your earlier employment was also in the LGPS or not) and when you will be able to take it.

https://www.lppapensions.co.uk/

Thanks @ChessieFL 👍

There is a useful Facebook group run by a company that are specialists in NHS and Public Sector pensions https://www.facebook.com/groups/933532547820523 that has helped me understand my LGPS pension.

They also have a Webinar on Tuesday at 6pm too if you have time https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/5b2994f8-83ee-4af0-bcd4-f41cd31b1e1e@c73c6e7b-388e-4af2-a9e6-cd3c31210c52