Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh
So here I am, in Maynooth, on my birthday. I’ve made such an impression here in Ireland since I arrived that they’ve declared this day a national holiday so I’ve got the day off.
The June Bank Holiday (Lá Saoire i mí Mheitheamh) in Ireland is actually the equivalent of last week’s late May Bank Holiday in the UK, in that both have their origin in the old festival of Whitsuntide (or Pentecost) which falls on the 7th Sunday after Easter. Because the date of Easter moves around in the calendar so does Whit Sunday, but it is usually in late May or early June. When the authorities decided to fix a statutory holiday at this time of year, presumably to reduce administrative difficulties, the UK went for late May and Ireland for early June. Whit Sunday was actually on 20th May this year.
Incidentally, when I was a lad, ‘Whit Week’ was always referred to as ‘Race Week’. Geordie Ridley’s famous music hall song The Blaydon Races begins “I went to Blaydon Races, ’twas on the 9th of June, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty Two on a summer’s afternoon…”. Easter Sunday fell on 20th April in 1862, so Whit Sunday was on 8th June. After raucous scenes at the Blaydon Races, they were scrapped and replaced with a Temperance Festival on the Town Moor in Newcastle which evolved into one of the largest open-air funfairs in Europe, The Hoppings.
Anyway, with this birthday, I have now reached the minimum retirement age in the UK university pension scheme, so I could start drawing my pension when I leave Cardiff University next month. For a time I was planning to do that, but Ireland has given me a new lease of life, so to speak, so thoughts of retirement have receded.
Today also represents a short hiatus before our formal Exam Board meeting tomorrow, then I’ll be back in Cardiff for exam business there. And next week I’ll be in neither Cardiff nor Maynooth…
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In the Dark 
June 4, 2018 at 11:35 am
Just a stupid question. How long one can carry on working
if they want in the UK?
June 4, 2018 at 11:40 am
There is no compulsory retirement age in the UK, but some pension schemes limit the total number of years’ benefit you can accrue.
June 4, 2018 at 11:46 am
If someone who has worked from the age of 30 and retires
at the age of 65 after working in the University sector
and with a rough average salary of say 34,000. What
would be the amount of pension he/she can draw.
Does it depend on the salary at the last job or the average
salary? Does it also depend also on personal
circumstances?
June 4, 2018 at 11:48 am
The pension scheme has recently changed so it’s hard to be specific. If you are in the USS scheme you should get an annual illustration of the amount you can expect at retirement.
June 4, 2018 at 2:27 pm
No, it’s no longer a defined benefit scheme, but if you were a member when it was a DB scheme you will get the pension benefits accrued before it closed.
June 4, 2018 at 11:47 am
I guess there is some webpage for this type of info?
June 4, 2018 at 12:24 pm
Whether or not you joined USS you get the basic state pension which is funded from National Insurance contributions. The most you can currently get is £125.95 per week. The basic State Pension increases every year by whichever is the highest of the following: earnings – the average percentage growth in wages (in Great Britain)
June 4, 2018 at 12:34 pm
Do you have to be a UK citizen? If someone has never worked
housewives is she eligible for basic state pension?
Sorry too many questions
I am just curious about the UK system. Lot of political debate
in newspapers but many like me do not know the facts.
Thanks a lot again and have a wonderful birthday!
Earlier we used to hear about your mom through your
blog I hope she is doing fine.
June 4, 2018 at 12:37 pm
I don’t know about eligibility, but you can find relevant information here:
https://www.gov.uk/state-pension
June 4, 2018 at 1:51 pm
If you have been receiving Child Benefit, or its predecessor, Family Allowance, you get credited with those years qualifying years for the state pension, even although you have not made any national insurance contributions.
June 4, 2018 at 1:52 pm
And no, you don’t have to be a UK citizen, although I think that you need the right to work in the UK. Maybe you have to have a National Insurance number.
June 4, 2018 at 2:29 pm
Yes there is an actuarial correction, which is a few per cent for every year early. In my case that would be very significant.
June 5, 2018 at 8:49 am
If you’ve left the UK for good, can’t you just declare you’re retired now and start drawing your UK occupational pension? How would USS know whether or not you’re working in Ireland?
June 5, 2018 at 8:56 am
I could do that. There’s no issue with it at all except that the pension I get is reduced by ~40% because of the actuarial correction arising from retiring 10 years early. If I defer the benefits they also go up with inflation (which University salaries don’t). Since I don’t need the money right now it makes sense just to leave the USS pot alone until I need it; the benefits I would get now increase by ~4% per year on top of inflation if I leave them alone.
It’s perfectly legal however to retire early in the UK and take a job in another country.
June 5, 2018 at 11:57 am
I see. I thought you just got N/80 of your final salary when you retired, and the only downside to going early was that N is then closer to 30 than 40 – I didn’t realise there was a further age-related penalty. So if they pay 60% of pension, and you live for T years after 65, the break-even point is 0.6 (10+T) = T, so T = 15. Thus your current strategy assumes you will live to beyond 80, which I hope is reasonable.
June 5, 2018 at 12:06 pm
Well, the final salary part has been closed for a couple of years, so I can’t get more than 30 years in that anyway. I have however moved into the Irish Civil Service Pension scheme which is basically of final salary form.
Your calculation is (unsurprisingly) consistent with the actuarial life tables, which show that a man aged 55 has a future life expectancy of about 25 years. The actuarial correction isn’t exactly linear, of course, and it depends on a number of factors, including what the `Normal Pension Age’ was when you joined the scheme.
Incidentally, a fact from the life tables that stuck in my mind is the age that you have to reach before you have only a 50% chance of surviving another year; it is 108.
June 5, 2018 at 12:23 pm
I don’t think you have to leave the UK to do that. I think the only issue is if you take a job where the employer is in the same pension scheme, and even then if there is a break in employment its probably allowed. So I think John that you could retire from Edinburgh, draw your pension, and pretty much immediately take a job with a University which is in TPS. I was definitely told by pensions advisers that it was OK the other way round.
June 5, 2018 at 12:27 pm
Yes, that’s my understanding.
I do know of one example of a senior academic who retired on a full pension from the UK and then took up a Professorship in Denmark, on a good salary.
June 5, 2018 at 12:44 pm
Indeed. In USS there is a provision to take a fraction of your pension early..
June 5, 2018 at 1:51 pm
In the UK, pension income is taxable but no National Insurance is payable. That leads to another factor: to get the full state pension you need to keep paying NI, so you need to make voluntary contributions.
June 5, 2018 at 8:28 pm
Where one is liable for tax depends upon the double taxation treaty between the country where it arises and the country where you live. I know this in the case of the UK and Australia, as it affects me. Pension/Superannuation income is taxed in the country of residence. This is unlike interest and dividends, which are taxed in the country in which they arise.
June 5, 2018 at 1:48 pm
As far as I’m concerned the main argument in favour of taking the pension benefit immediately is that one can’t trust the managers of USS, and waiting 10 years might mean getting no benefit at all.
June 5, 2018 at 8:25 pm
Absolutely, take the pension as soon as you can without actuarial loss, take the maximum as a lump sum.
June 6, 2018 at 9:05 am
Yes of course there is, by “as soon as you can” I mean’t to say “as soon as you reach the age after which there is no actuarial reduction”. That is 60 for TPS, I don’t know what it is for USS.
We often call this the retirement age, but it isn’t really, as you can always keep working. You can even keep paying into the pension scheme if you havn’t enough qualifying years. I don’t think you can keep paying in to the scheme and drawing from it at the same time, but I may be wrong on that. You can certainly draw from one scheme and pay in to another.
June 6, 2018 at 9:13 am
It was 60 for USS but was increased to 65 fairly recently.
June 6, 2018 at 9:07 am
But the reason for my comment about the taking the lump sum is that I don’t trust them not to reduce defined benefits even after they have been defined. Or I don’t trust myself not to die, which is the other thing you have to consider.
June 6, 2018 at 9:50 am
Actually looking at it TPS are increasing it to 65 too, its only 60 if you joined the scheme before 1st January 2007.