Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

[Amor de Cosmos]

Next week I will become eligible for a UK government pension — probably about £1.50p a week but never mind — however I've no idea how to apply. I assume I'll need my national insurance number but I've no idea what it is anymore, where would I start looking?

[WOM]

Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

The junk drawer to the left of the sock drawer.

[Guy Profumo]

Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

[pedant]
£1.50
[/pedant]

[Amor de Cosmos]

Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

The junk drawer to the left of the sock drawer.

Tried that, no good. My Mum, so she says, kept my cards until about fifteen years ago, probably in the futile hope I'd see sense and return from the colonies for good, sadly she finally gave up and threw them out.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

what is a maven?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

Yiddish for an expert/connoisseur according the OCD.

[ursus arctos]

Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

I'd start with the British consulate in Vancouver, Amor.

And not expect the process to be simple, straightforward or fair.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Question for Brit Bureaucracy mavens

When you say a "UK government" pension, Amor, I assume you mean a Civil Service pension (from working in the Civil Service in the past) rather than the state pension (that men get when they're 65)?

There appear to be a number of official-looking websites dealing with the "Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme", or PCSPS. Ordinarily I'd suggest getting in touch with the pensions section of the Department you last worked for, but depending on which one it was and how long ago it was, there have been that many machinery of government changes that tracking them down might be a challenge in itself (lots of teachers, for example, who all used to work for the Ministry of Education, now all work for either a Local Education Authority or something called the DCFS).

This site is Capita Hartshead's PCSPS site, they seem to be a reasonable bet to start asking questions about deferred pensions.

If I'm right, and you were in the classic scheme back in the day (and have not, already, drawn down your benefits by transferring them somewhere else) your pension will be based on x/80ths of your final salary with the civil service, index-linked for inflation in the intervening years, where x is the number of years service you put in. You also get a one-off lump sum of 3 times that annual amount, and you can reclaim any widows' pension contributions you paid in, if you are unmarried at age 60.

So if you were earning the equivalent of £16k when you left, and had ten year's service, your pension would be £2k a year, which will also stay index-linked in the future, with a one-off lump sum of £6k. Better than a kick in the plums, as they say, and definitely worth claiming (as you've realised, you do have to apply to draw down your pension - there's no realistic way the PCSPS could be expected to keep track, themselves, of everyone who may have ever worked for the Government, seeing as there are about 3 million people in the scheme at any given moment). The Capita site suggests it might take 3 months for the application process to run its course, but I assume any benefits are backdated to your 60th birthday.