Retirement at Brighton & Hove procedures

There is no default retirement age to end employment at the council. 

With effect from 1 April 2014, an individual’s normal pension age will be the later date of:

•  aged 65 years old or
•  state pension age date

Active pension scheme membership may continue until age 75, so long as employment continues. 

If you are still employed at age 75, your pension benefits will be brought into payment. 

Your state pension benefits are paid independently of your Local Government Pension Scheme benefits. 

These may come into payment at a different date depending on the circumstances and date of your Local Government Pension Scheme retirement. 

If you have questions relating to your state pension age and benefits check your State Pension forecast on GOV.UK.

You can also use GOV.UK's useful tool to check and plan for your retirement income. 

A compensation panel is held to review business cases for early retirement, where the council is to waive any applicable actuarial reduction.

This panel is made up of the following officers:

• Director of People & Innovation (or their delegate)
• the Monitoring Officer (or their deputy)
• the S151 Chief Finance Officer (or their deputy) 

The panel makes recommendations to the relevant Executive Director, who has responsibility for the final decision. 

From 1 April 2014, individuals have had the right to claim their occupational pension benefits at any time after their 55th birthday. This is without employer consent provided that they have at least 2 years membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme. 

To obtain an estimate of your Local Government Pension Scheme benefits, contact the scheme administrator, East Sussex Pension Fund, with your intended retirement date. 

You must leave the council’s employment before you can claim your pension benefits. 

When you hand in your notice to your line manager, you will also need to confirm your retirement date with the council’s Payroll and Pensions team at payroll@brighton-hove.gov.uk. 

For those who are eligible for 85 year rule protection, this will not apply for Local Government Pension Scheme benefits claimed between your 55th and 60th birthday. You are advised to request an estimate of your pension benefits from the scheme administrator before making a decision. 

Pension benefits claimed voluntarily will be paid as determined by the scheme administrator, with any relevant actuarial reduction for early payment applied.   

The council may need to make organisational changes for a number of reasons, such as:

• to provide services within defined budgets 
• a service is no longer required
• to generally operate in a way that proves to be more efficient 

Where change is necessary, this will be managed under the council’s organisation change management framework and associated policies. 

A decision to terminate employment on the grounds of efficiency or redundancy is either an employer dismissal or mutual termination. 

This is a formal process, but you may have the opportunity to express an interest in leaving in these circumstances, if this is what you want, and it avoids a compulsory redundancy for another member of staff, also affected by any proposals.

Provided that you’re aged 55 or over, and have at least 2 years membership of the pension scheme, you will become entitled to the immediate payment of your accrued pension benefits. Your pension will not be actuarially reduced for retiring early.  

If you are redundant, and have at least 2 years' recognised continuous service, you will be entitled to a redundancy payment. This is a statutory payment as compensation for losing your job and the loss of your salary, as at the time of the redundancy. 

The payment is based on your age, the number of full years’ continuous service you have completed and your contractual weekly pay. The legislation gives a maximum amount that can be used to calculate your weekly pay, but the council has the discretion to ignore this maximum amount if you earn above this level. 

The council has decided that it will normally ignore the statutory maximum weekly pay rate and use your actual weekly pay if this is higher. 

You must not accept a job, before leaving the council, to work for an associated employer (one listed in the modification order) starting before the fifth Monday after leaving. If you do, you will not break your continuity of service and you will not be redundant from the council.

There are circumstances within the legislation that allows the council to reduce your redundancy payment if your pension is greater than one third of your final salary. 

The council has decided that it will not normally reduce your redundancy payment in these circumstances. 

The council has the discretion to make additional compensation awards if you are made redundant, or if your employment ceases on the grounds of efficiency of the service. 

The total amount of compensation is discretionary up to a maximum of 104 weeks' pay, but this will include any redundancy payment that you are entitled to.

The council has decided that it will consider making additional compensation awards in cases of redundancy or efficiency of the service in completely exceptional cases if you are dismissed and this has a significant impact on you and your ability to get a new job. 

Any payment made will have to pass scrutiny and be justified to the council’s auditors as being appropriate and proportionate. 

If you are dismissed, have tried to gain new employment and feel that there are exceptional circumstances why you should receive an additional compensation award, complete an increase in severance payment application form (RT5). 

This should be completed no more than 2 weeks before your last day of employment, and no more than 5 months after leaving. The application form will ask you for details about what jobs you have applied for and if you have received a job offer, then what rate of pay you will receive.

The compensation panel will meet to consider your application and make recommendations to the relevant Executive Director. They will judge your application solely on its merits and aim to have a consistent and transparent approach to recommending any award. 

The panel may decide not to make any additional compensation award, but whatever their decision you will be notified within 7 calendar days.

If you are not granted an additional award, or if the amount of the award is less than you think you should receive, then you can appeal against the decision of the panel, and you must do this within 7 calendar days of receiving notification from the panel. 

Councillors are prohibited from considering grievances under discretionary compensation arrangements made under the council's retirement procedure. 

You may apply for your pension to be brought into payment on compassionate grounds if you have all of the following:

• at least 2 years membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme
• are under your normal retirement age 
• medium to long term caring responsibilities for a dependent with a chronic or terminal illness that mean you need to leave your employment 

The decision for this to happen is completely at the council’s discretion and any application would be considered by the compensation panel. 

However, you should discuss your situation with your line manager, in the first instance, to assess whether there is any alternative route that can be pursued to allow you to stay in work. 

The compensation panel will assess medical information, financial circumstances and other caring support available as part of the process. They will then make their recommendations to the relevant Executive Director, whose responsibility it is for making any decisions in such cases.

If it is approved, then any actuarial reduction that would have applied to your pension benefits will be waived on compassionate grounds.

Cases for compassionate retirement are approved on an exceptional basis and only after careful consideration and scrutiny by the compensation panel. 

There is no right of appeal against this sort of decision and councillors are prohibited from considering grievances under discretionary compensation arrangements made under the council's retirement procedure. 

You may discuss the option of applying for flexible retirement with your line manager. 

Flexible retirement means your pension benefits are brought into payment, alongside you continuing to work on a reduced rate of pay. You must ensure that you have a permanent reduction in your pay of at least a third, as part of any flexible retirement agreement. 

This will be achieved either by you reducing the hours and/or weeks that you work, or by transferring to a lower paid position, after being declared at risk of redundancy. You also need to waive the right to any pay protection due under the organisation change management framework and associated policies.

Flexible retirement is agreed at the discretion of the council. All cases are considered by the compensation panel and then require approval from the relevant Executive Director. 

Your line manager is required to present a business case as to how the flexible retirement would impact the ongoing service provision and budget, as there may be a cost to the council for your pension benefits being brought into payment early. 

It is intended that any agreed flexible retirements will secure a saving for the council. Each case is assessed on its own merits by the panel.

As part of the process, you will be provided with an estimate of your Local Government Pension Scheme benefits, so that you can make the decision as to whether flexible retirement is the right option for you.  

Where flexible retirement is approved, you must take all of your pre 1 April 2008 benefits plus some, all or none of your benefits accrued after 1 April 2008.

If you get agreement to flexibly retire you must enter into a mutual agreement with the council to end your current contract. You will then be issued with a new contract on the terms agreed with your line manager. If you are reducing your hours in your current position, you will only be issued with an amendment to contract.  

When you complete the application form you will need to sign to confirm that you are aware of the key implications for the possible reduction of your pension benefits for drawing them early, that you will not have the benefit of any protection under the 85 year rule for future service, and about any implications on accessing any additional pension provision you may have paid into.

If your flexible retirement is approved, arrangements will then be made for your contractual amendment to be actioned and for your pension to be put into payment.  

Appealing against a decision not to allow you flexible retirement 

If you are not allowed to retire flexibly, or the terms you are being offered are not what you want, then you may appeal against the decision. 

There is a special appeal process for this, and councillors are prohibited from considering grievances under discretionary compensation arrangements made under the council's retirement procedure.

You will need to appeal in writing, using the flexible retirement appeals form, within seven calendar days of receiving the council’s decision. An appeal meeting will then be arranged. You have the right to bring a representative to the meeting. A representative from human resources will usually attend the meeting to advise the line manager.

Following the appeal meeting, the council will write to you with its final decision, no more than 7 calendar days after the meeting.

If you believe that the Local Government Pension Scheme regulations have been incorrectly applied, you can request a review under the ESPF's internal disputes resolution procedure. This is considered as a paper submission by the relevant adjudicator at stage one and a Chief Officer at stage 2, with recourse to the Pensions Ombudsman. 

This procedure can only address complaints about decisions regarding pension matters.

For more information, refer to the internal dispute resolution procedure - East Sussex Pension Fund.

Flexible retirement and the effect on your pension

If your flexible retirement is approved, an implementation date will be agreed. On this date you will transfer onto your new contractual terms and your pension benefits accrued to the date of your flexible retirement will be brought into payment. 

Your pension benefits will be actuarially reduced if you draw them early, except if you are declared at risk of redundancy, in which case all or part of the actuarial reduction may be waived on a case-by-case basis.

There are some specific pension issues that you need to be aware of before deciding whether or not to apply for flexible retirement. You may accrue additional pension benefits in relation to your new contract, but this additional service will not benefit from any 85-year rule protections, that may have applied had you not taken flexible retirement. 

In addition, if you are buying added years in the pension scheme, buying additional pension through Additional Regular Contributions (ARC), Additional Pension Contributions (APCs) or paying into a separate Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) scheme, then you should speak to the scheme administrator to ensure that you understand how this affects your personal position.

The 85-year rule allows certain protected scheme members to gain access to, or request access to, unreduced pension benefits if they are drawn before normal retirement age. A scheme member meets the rule of 85 if their membership plus age in whole years is at least 85. The pension scheme administrator can confirm whether your benefits are subject to protection under this rule.

As you will remain in employment, when you take flexible retirement, you become a re-employed pensioner. Normally there are restrictions on what you could earn as a re-employed pensioner, without it affecting your pension. This does not apply when you take flexible retirement, provided that the re-employment is with the same employer, unless you increase your pay above the limit of a permanent reduction of at least a third of your pay, at the date of the agreed flexible retirement.   

If you return to work with an employer where you are eligible to join the Local Government Pension Scheme, after you have retired, then this may affect the ongoing payment of your pension. 

This restriction is known as abatement, and you should speak to the scheme administrator, before returning to work, to ascertain how your pension may be affected.

Decisions in relation to abatement for LGPS members working for Brighton & Hove City Council are made by East Sussex County Council, as the scheme administrator, in accordance with their policy discretions. They have decided that any benefits accrued in the Local Government Pension Scheme will not be subject to abatement. 

The council has also decided that it will not normally re-employ, either as an employee, self employed contractor or through an agency, those employees who take voluntary redundancy or early retirement on redundancy, efficiency or compassionate grounds, for a period of 2 years.   

It is important that you are fully prepared for your retirement and know how this will affect you financially.

You should ensure that you have received an estimate of your pension benefits before retiring so that you know what you may receive. 

You will also need to decide how much of your pension benefits you want to take as a tax-free lump sum. You can take up to 25% of the capital value of your pension as a tax-free sum and the scheme administrator will provide you with figures, as to how much this is in your personal circumstances. The higher lump sum you take the lower your annual pension will be.

For more information about the process for taking your LGPS pension and planning your retirement please see the East Sussex Pension Fund retirement planning guide.