value payable in respect of your PCSPS benefits and any alternative to a transfer value. Then ask your new pension provider for details of what the transfer value will buy. In considering your position bear in mind that:
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i. if you have less than 2 years' qualifying service in the PCSPS and your accrued pension benefits cannot, therefore, be preserved, you are entitled to have your guaranteed minimum pension restored to the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme and, if you are unmarried, to receive a refund of your widow's or widower's pension contributions. Alternatively, you are entitled to take a transfer value to another pension scheme which may, if the new scheme is contracted-out, include your guaranteed minimum pension.
ii. if you have an entitlement to have your accrued pension benefits preserved in the PCSPS, they will be brought into payment at age 60 if they are not transferred. Under present legislation, preserved benefits in the PCSPS attract increases in line with movements in the cost of living and you will have to
decide whether this benefit is likely to be better or worse in the long run than the benefits being offered by the new provider.
iii. if you left the civil service on or before 5 April 1988 with at least 2 but less than 5 years' qualifying service in the PCSPS, you were entitled to have your guaranteed minimum pension restored to the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme, to the payment of a lump sum short service payment and, if you were unmarried, to a refund of
your widow's and widower's pension contributions. Alternatively you are entitled to take a transfer value to another pension scheme which may, if
the new scheme is contracted out, include your guaranteed minimum pension, provided that the conditions set out in the PCSPS are fulfilled; see pages 13 and 14.
You should note that, if you have entered a new occupational pension scheme and the service credit or benefits deriving from the transfer value, when added to your prospective service or benefit in the new pension scheme, totals more than that which the new pension scheme will allow, the credit, or the eventual benefits, may be restricted. It might then be to your advantage not to opt for the transfer value payment but to start earning pension benefits afresh in your new scheme.
Club transfer
If you are moving to a Club pension scheme with an increase in salary, the value of your benefits could increase immediately as you will be credited with broadly equivalent service and your resulting benefits will be based on the higher salary (but see pages 12 and 13). If you move with a small drop in salary, you may still consider that a transfer will be to your advantage in the longer term because the benefits purchased in your new scheme will increase in line with increases in your future salary and those benefits could, within a very short time, overtake those which would have stood to your credit in the PCSPS (even allowing for protection against inflation). Subject to the rules of your new scheme, benefits could also become payable immediately in the event of premature retirement. However, if you move with a substantial drop in salary and you are entitled to preserved benefits, it may not be to your advantage to have your pension benefits transferred. If you do not transfer your PCSPS benefits, you will probably have
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