Employees aged 55 and over (excluding those employed by a school) have the right to apply to flexibly retire to help them ease into retirement, by reducing contracted hours by 50%.
Requests will be considered in line with the needs of the service and our policy is contained in the employer discretions document attached to this page.
Members of the Local Government Pension Scheme may be able to start receiving their pension from the age of 55, however pension benefits will normally be reduced if retiring earlier than the normal retirement age.
You should consider the financial, tax and pension implications of your request. You can find out more about flexible retirement on the Derbyshire Pension Fund website.
My Pension Online has a pension calculator where an estimate can be obtained. The calculator enables you to calculate estimates for different retirement dates of your choice. We recommend this is done before you commence an application for flexible retirement. A written pensions estimate can be obtained from Derbyshire Pension Fund once a predicted commencement date is chosen, and this can be done as part of the application process to ensure up-to-date pay information is provided by HR Services.
A pension estimate can be obtained from the Derbyshire Pension Fund.
If you've received your pension estimate and wish to make an application for flexible retirement to reduce your hours, please discuss this with your line manager. Once you have a date that you'd like to start your flexible retirement and new working arrangements, please complete the flexible retirement application form.
If you decide to take flexible retirement, pension benefits are paid based on what you have accrued up to the point of commencing your reduced hours, subject to any reductions for retiring early. You can continue to make further pension contributions in your reduced hours should you wish to into a new pension record.
The option to defer your pension is not available when taking flexible retirement.
Flexible retirement process
Due to the approval stages required, and time needed to produce pension figures, the process should be started with as much notice as possible, and no final date can be confirmed until until all approvals have been obtained.
- An employee completes the flexible retirement application form in full. At this point, the commencement date entered is an estimate only and confirmation will be sought again at the end of the process. A line manager can also complete the form on the employee's behalf if required.
- The employee's line manager will be notified of the request by email and should have a further conversation with the employee about the application if required.
- If the line manager supports the application, it should be discussed with the relevant head of service to ensure they also support the request.
- The line manager will then complete the relevant sections in the flexible retirement portal and confirm if they support the application or not.
- At each stage of the process the employee and line manager will be notified of progress by email as the case is supported. Where the case is not supported, only the line manager will be notified so they can explain the reasons for this to the applicant, having discussed it within the department or with the resourcing manager, if required. Line managers can also access the flexible retirement portal to view progress on cases for their employees.
- HR will request a pension cost estimate from Derbyshire Pension Fund which confirms any cost to the council. Once received, they will arrange for a written estimate to be sent to the employee, if one was requested on the application form.
- Once the pension cost estimate has been received, an HR resourcing manager will review the request and ask for more information, if needed.
- Following support by the resourcing manager and confirmation of any pension cost to the council, approval from the relevant assistant director is sought.
- If supported by the assistant director, the request is sent for comment and support by senior members of HR, legal, and finance.
- Once support is provided by HR, legal and finance, the request is sent to the department's executive director for final approval.
- When all necessary approvals are granted, the line manager will be asked to provide confirmation of the actual start date of the flexible retirement. It is suggested to select a start date of the first of a month to allow maximum time for processing of the paperwork between HR Services and Derbyshire Pension Fund and the best opportunity for the first pension payment to be made in the first month of reduced pay.
- The resourcing manager will complete a final review of the application to ensure all support has been provided and there are no outstanding issues, before sending the confirmation of approval to Derbyshire Pension Fund and HR services who will then await official notification from the line manager through the SAP system.
- The line manager can then advise HR services via SAP Workplace of the revised working pattern and agreed start date.
- Once the start date is confirmed through SAP, HR services will provide pay details to Derbyshire Pension Fund to allow calculation and payment of pension to the employee.
- Derbyshire Pension Fund will contact the employee to request the relevant pension forms are completed to enable payments to be made.
If you have any questions about flexible retirement please contact your departmental resourcing manager.
If you need any assistance with the flexible retirement portal, please email businesssupport.hr@derbyshire.gov.uk