What is the Civil Sevice Pension Scheme?
The Civil Service Pension Scheme covers staff of employers made up of government departments and non-departmental public bodies, such as museums, commissions and other organisations.
The type of pension you get from the Civil Service depends on when you joined, but it’s one of the most generous of its kind. Known as a ‘defined benefit’ pension, civil servants get paid a retirement income based on the salary they had during their career.
The Civil Service Pension Scheme has been through many permutations over the years, with the latest version of the scheme introduced in April 2015.
This guide explains exactly what you need to know about the Civil Service Pension Scheme, telling you how much you pay in, what you get back and worked examples throughout which explain how the schemes work.
Which Civil Service Pension Scheme applies to me?
The scheme has five final salary sections: Classic, Classic Plus, Premium, Nuvos and Alpha.
Up to 30 September 2002, the only pension offered was the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS). On 1 October 2002, a new scheme, called ‘Premium’, was introduced and the old scheme was renamed ‘Classic’.
Members could either stay in the old scheme or join the new one. There was also a third option, Classic Plus, which is a hybrid of Classic and Premium.
Nuvos was the scheme offered to new joiners from 30 July 2007 until the latest version, Alpha, began from April 2015
Since 2002, new entrants have also had the option of joining Partnership, which is a defined contribution pension scheme with employer contributions.
The Partnership scheme doesn’t pay you an income based on your salary while you were working as a civil servant. Instead, your pension contributions are invested in a pot, with which you can generate an income in retirement. You can find out more about this in our guide to ‘what can I do with my pension pot?’.
How much does the Civil Service Pension Scheme pay?
The different schemes will pay out on a slightly different basis. Our examples will help you work out what you’ll get.
There are a couple of bits of pension jargon to watch out for here.
Most of the calculations are based on ‘pensionable earnings’, i.e. all earnings that could count towards your pension. They may include non-cash items, such as uniforms or accommodation.
What happens to my Civil Service Pension if I have a career break?
Classic, Classic Plus and Premium
If you take a career break you will not build up any reckonable service during your absence and you will not have to pay contributions.
You will therefore not build up any pension for the duration of your career break. If you return you will return to whichever scheme you were a member of when you left.
Nuvos
If you are not paid, you will not build up any pension and you cannot pay contributions while on a career break.
Alpha
If you re-join Alpha after leaving, and also have some service in the other Civil Service Pension Schemes (Classic, Classic Plus, Premium, or Nuvos), how your pension is treated will depend on:
- whether or not you have preserved benefits
- how long your break was.
