are retired and receiving a Civil Service Pension, or
have taken an annual compensation payment
and continue to work for, or are re-employed by a Civil Service employer, your combined salary and pension cannot be more than you were earning before you retired.
If your new salary and pension exceed your pre-retirement salary, we deduct the excess from your pension. This is known as abatement.
We may also abate your:
pension - if you opt for partial retirement, or
salary - if you had a Compulsory Early Severance package that included a reserved rights top-up payment and then work for a Civil Service employer. This is because the top-up payment includes an element of pension.
How is abatement worked out?
Step 1
We take the salary of reference that was used to work out your pension when you retired and apply cost of living increases where appropriate.
Step 2
We add your new salary and your pension together.
Step 3
If the sum in Step 2 is greater than the sum in Step 1, we will reduce the pension by the difference.
If you’re retired and applying for a job with a Civil Service employer, you can ask for an estimate showing the potential effect of any abatement.
If you are thinking about taking partial retirement, the partial retirement calculator will give you an indication of whether abatement would apply to your pension and how much it would be.
Applying abatement to your pension
We will reduce your pension from the start date of your new job or the date from when you take partial retirement.
The amount of abatement may change if:
you’re promoted temporarily or permanently
your conditioned hours change
you benefit from a retrospective pay rise that changes either:
the salary that was used to work out your pension before you retired or partially retired, or
the salary that was used in your new post when we initially worked out the abatement
you become entitled to a new temporary or permanent pensionable allowance
you are fee paid and your fees are re-negotiated (see the next section for more details).
We do not increase the level of abatement as a result of normal annual pay rises, or if you work overtime.
Abatement and re-employment
What if I’m re-employed on a fee paid basis?
Abatement still applies and can increase or decrease if your fees are re-negotiated.
However, the calculation is slightly different. Your pension is deducted from your old pay to produce your earnings margin. This is the amount you may earn in fees in any 12 month period. For any fees you earn above the earnings margin, your pension or ACP is reduced by a corresponding amount.
What if I previously left on compulsory early severance with reserved rights to a top-up payment?
If you took compulsory early severance, were under the age of 40 and were serving in a mobile grade on 1 April 1987, you will have had a reserved right to a top up payment. This lump sum was equivalent to the benefits you would have received under previous early retirement provisions.
For abatement only, we work out the amount you would have received under the previous early retirement provisions. This amount is reduced to reflect the extent to which your pension and lump sum were enhanced. The remaining figure is then used in the abatement calculation as if it were a pension in payment. In these circumstances, if abatement is required, your salary is reduced.
What if I previously left on medical retirement?
If you were in classic, your ill health pension will be reduced to exclude the element of enhancement and the remaining pension will be subject to abatement in the usual way.
If you were previously in premium, classic plus or nuvos and receiving a lower tier pension, it will be subject to abatement. If you are getting an upper tier ill health pension, it will be subject to abatement and you will not be able to re-join the CSP arrangements.
What if I had commuted or repackaged some or all of an ACP?
We’ll apply the annual rate of ACP that would have been in payment as if you had not commuted or repackaged it. Where abatement applies and the amount of abatement is greater than the actual ACP in payment following commutation or repackaging, your new salary will be reduced by the amount of the excess.
What if I commuted some or all of my pension into a lump sum, or lump sum into pension?
If you were in classic, we’ll apply abatement as if you had taken a standard lump sum. If you were in classic plus, premium or nuvos, we’ll work out the abatement as if you had exchanged some of your pension to take a standard lump sum. We multiply your initial pension by 0.8125 (if you were in classic plus, we assume you took the standard lump sum for service before 1 October 2002; the post October 2002 pension is multiplied by 0.8125). This ensures abatement applies consistently regardless of how much lump sum you choose to take.
What if I had allocated some of my pension?
We’ll use the pension that would have been in payment as if you had not allocated.
