Barclays Final Salary Scheme

[tigersam258]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8155461.st m

If I no longer work for them and have a frozen pension, what does this mean to the money that I paid in for 12 years? Will I get anything back?

[factor-fiction]

Your scheme documention will set out what happens. A,though you say it is ' frozen' I expect the pension pot will effectively increase in year broadly in line with the Retail Price index or CPI (depending on the scheme's rules) , and you will at some stage be entitled to draw a pension. You will be able to take 25% of the pension value as tax free lump sum and a regular pension from the residue. The age at which you can draw it depends on your date of birth- under current rules it is age 50 but this will rise to to 55 next year (although barclays may still allow 50). The amount you get will depend on the scheme rules- if it was final salary it will be based on your years' service and your final salary (plus subsequent 'inflation' adjustment)

Ask your pension fund trustees for a quote.

If you have only recently left and you have a new job you may be able to transfer the fund value to the new employers' pension scheme.

[buildersmate]

Of course you will, and it will not impact you in any way.
What will happen is that the scheme will cease IN THE FUTURE to be driven by the salary of the retiree in his/her final year of employment. I am very confident that pension benefits will be paid to current employers at the 'Final Salary Rate' up the point when the current scheme is turned off - then some different (lower benefit) formula will start up from now until the individual retires.
But for you, all of this is irrelevant - your pension is 'locked' to the salary you were on at the date you resigned/left Barclays. So whatever happens in the future is irrelevant.

The media are utterly useless at explaining this properly and Unite and other Unions are totally disengenous in their head-in-the-sand attitude that FUTURE pension benefits are sacrocant. HISTORIC benefits can reasonably be expected to be held as sacrocant - but by the same token that one's future employment terms & conditions are not guaranteed, the same has to be true when it comes to pensions.
This country is heading for an almighty financial problem if Government doesn't tell the Unions that their position over final salary schemes is untenable and unaffordable.

[cassa333]

I Have a friend how works for Barclays and he is being made redundant September time. He and the others due for early retirement are, once made redundant, take 'early' retirement on final salery pensions. That way it can't be taken away!!

[tigersam258]

thanks all and especially Buildersmate. I don't know too much about pensions as they are a bit of a mystery but in the current climate of the banks losing our money hand over fist, I was naturally worried. I feel a little more secure now.

[buildersmate]

Pensions funds are kept separate from company assets - a relic of the days when R Maxwell stole his companies pension fund to provide more money to support his failing business. They are held by pension trustees.