A lot of any idle moments that I may have had yesterday was taken up with trying to work out the impact of my state pension following Meg’s death. I had been previously told by a DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) official that one had to wait until a spouse died before ‘the state’ would attempt to work out the subsequent pension implications. These are so complicated and relate to past schemes, now abandoned years ago of which the principal was SERPs (State Earning Related Pension Scheme). The fundamental idea was quite a sound one, but here is an official explanation. The State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS) ended in 2002, being replaced by the State Second Pension (S2P). While SERPS operated from 1978 to 2002, it was no longer possible to contribute to it after 2002. Contracting out of SERPS, which involved paying reduced National Insurance contributions in exchange for building up benefits in a private pension, ended on April 5, 2016. In very general terms, a surviving spouse could inherit a proportion (depending upon their spouse’s date of birth) of their spouse’s SERPS. But teachers, local authority workers and NHS were ‘contracted out’ of SERPS as they had their own pension schemes and so it becomes horrendously complicated to ascertain what actual SERPS contribution a ‘contracted out’ individual might have actually paid and therefore what was the quantum (if any) that could potentially be inherited. Now following Meg’s death, my own pension has gone up a smidgeon whilst my teachers’ pension has reduced as I am now paying the tax on the miniscule increase I may or may or may not have inherited from Meg. We have not been given any letters detailing the calculations and probably these are spat out of a computer in any case but I have received a not very helpful letter from the DWP stating ‘we note that your circumstances have changed’ So a lot of yesterday, after a phone call to the DWP, I have been left trying to backfit an explanation to the miniscule increase that I have been awarded. I did have an inclination to write a formal letter to the DWP asking for a detailed breakdown of the figures involved but I am a little cautious in this respect. This is because it is always possible that a mistake had been made in my favour and a further investigation might uncover it and withdraw it. So leaving well alone in the face to figures spat out of the government machine can be a sensible policy. I am very much reminded of my own brother-in-law who has now died but at the time of his retirement got a much larger pension than the one to which he thought was entitled. As the owner/manager of a small business, my brother-in-law would have been no slouch in working out what was due to him and making the necessary calculations but as the actual figure awarded to him exceeded his expectations he just kept quiet about it (so he told me at the time) and I am sure this was a very sensible policy. So, at the end of the day I think I should probably be very grateful for any small amounts of pension received and as I calibrate everything by the price of a bought cup of coffee these days, it could be that Meg’s enduring contributions will sustain me in my Wetherspoon’s expenditure on coffee twice a week. Evidently financial affairs are always regarded as exceptionally private affairs -I am reminded of a ‘Sunday Times’ survey in which couples revealed all kinds of details of their sexual practices in a survey but thought that questions on their earnings were far too intrusive! But one of my Tuesday/Saturday friends had some accountancy expertise and used to work out the payroll for the Holiday Inn down the road when she was at work so I might ask her for an opinion on what might be going on in our case.
Yesterday morning was always going to take on a different pattern as, in the absence of our domestic help on holiday, I decided to go down to the Methodist Centre to which venue I used to take Meg in the days when I could get her into a car and then into a wheelchair to access the centre. We always found the crowd to be very chatty and supportive, particularly when you located yourself on the ‘chatty’ table i.e. willing and able to talk. Eventually, I got into conversation with 3-4 ladies, all widowed I think and one who had lost her husband to Parkinson’s disease about a year ago. We chatted about some local matters and, in particular, the building that seems to be taking place all around us. At the moment, I have to endure huge earth moving vehicles in the field behind the house which used to be used to fatten up lambs and they have just constructed an access road for a huge development shortly to commence in front of us. Bromsgrove is due to build 12,000 new houses increasing the present stock of 40,000 houses by 30% with no commensurate increase in roads or facilities. I suspect that Bromsgrove may be the first town in the country to be completely gridlocked as each house will probably generate an extra 2.5 cars (Mum, Dad and teenage children) but the emphasis is on building houses at all costs and not sustainable communities. So my chats at the Methodist centre took up most of the morning after which I came home and prepared myself yet another salad lunch. My acquaintances in the Methodist centre were telling me about U3A (University of the 3rd Age) and there seem to be some interesting local groups. I have sent off an introductory email to a coffee morning group who meet in a local garden centre and there are a couple of other (exploring the history of local churches and another which appears to be a dining club) that might be worth an explore. And there is no doubt that I probably need to work on my Spanish a little and might join an Adult Education class in the autumn if not before.