Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many retired civil servants are in receipt of a pension via the civil service Classic scheme; and how many of those individuals are in receipt of a (a) widows and (b) widowers’ pension.
A total of 660,782 Civil Servants are in receipt of a pension under classic terms.
Of those
92,550 are in receipt of a widows pension and;
15,905 a widowers pension.
552,327 are in receipt of the classic pension
50.47% (278,762) of retired Civil Servants in receipt of a classic pension are women.
The number of widows and widowers who have had their pensions suspended is given in the below table.
| Number of pensions suspended in year | |
Year in which pension suspended | Widows | Widowers |
2017 | 42 | 48 |
2018 | 22 | 13 |
2019 | 5 | 7 |
2020 | 1 | 3 |
2021 | 3 | 0 |
2022 | 0 | 0 |
MyCSP, the pension administrator, are unable to split the numbers based on those remarrying and those cohabiting as their system does not record it in this manner.
The numbers provided are based on MyCSP’s current data holding and include those that were suspended and have not since been restored on their system.
Where a spouse’s Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) remains payable and only the spouse pension in excess of this is suspended, MyCSP are unable to include these in the data provided because their system will show the benefit as ‘in payment’ although the excess element is suspended. Therefore, the record does not show as suspended.