Public and Commercial Services Union

Annual general meeting ARMS South East

The South East Region of the above Association is holding its Annual General Meeting on Thursday 23rd February 2012 at 1.30 p.m.

Find out more about the meeting and how you can attend at the ARMS South East news page

Public Service Pension Increase 2011

The annual April public service pension increase is based on the inflation figure from the previous September. The CPI figure in the year to September 2010 was 3.1 per cent, so if the change takes place, public service pensioners will receive a 3.1 per cent increase from April 2011.

To give a comparison, the September RPI figure was 4.6 per cent. Therefore a public service pensioner with a £10,000 pension in payment will lose £150 this year alone.

Basic State Pension

In the June 2010 Budget, the Government announced the restoration of the earnings link for the basic state pension from April 2011, with a ‘triple guarantee’ that it would rise by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent. The ‘prices’ element of the triple guarantee would be RPI in April 2011 but would revert to CPI thereafter.

The highest part of the ‘triple guarantee’ for this year is prices. The basic state pension will therefore be increased by the September 2010 RPI figure – 4.6 per cent from April 2011. The full basic pension will rise from £97.65 to £102.15.

The state additional pension, whether in the form of SERPS or the State Second Pension, will increase by 3.1 per cent in line with the CPI.