Clerical Positions in the Civil and Public Service

Strongbow10 wrote: »

ridiculous question but do you claim the CS pension and the old age contributory pension or just the CS pension alone?

There is a formula used called COPC- whereby your pension entitlement is calculated.

You earn 1/80th of your career average salary as a pension, per year of service. So- you need 40 years of service, to earn 50% of your career average salary as a pension.

This pension is then reduced by whatever the prevailing rate of Contributory Old Age Pension may be. At the moment the rate is 230.30 a week- aka 11,975.60 per annum. So- you only earn a civil service pension on that portion of your career average pension over 23,951........

If you had a career average pension of 30,000 (entirely a reasonable assumption)

You get your lumpsum of 1.5 times your career average salary (this is taxable now, it usen't be!)

You claim the Contributory Old age pension of 230.30 a week

You get a civil service pension of 58.16 per week (3024 per annum)

You are expected to claim the Contributory OAP as the major part of your pension. If you are not entitled to it (e.g. if you retire before the commencement date for the OAP- currently 66, but due to rise to 70 in stages over the next 10 years)- you only get the civil service portion of the pension (58.16) a week until such time as you are entitled to the OAP- though you may be entitled to other social welfare payments (it is suggested unemployment benefit may be appropriate- though frankly, I don't see how/why).

The 'gold plated' pension that the media love to harp on about- is a load of bullcrap for most civil servants- certainly some limited numbers of people on high salaries do get very very generous pensions- but for the vast number of civil servants- they are expected to subsist by and large on the contributory OAP- with a very small civil service stipend (in the above example- 58 Euro a week), ontop of it.

This is something the media do not tell you..........