Pension Sharing is where your pension is shared with your former partner due to a divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership.
If you share your pension with your former partner they’ll become a Pension Credit member. They’ll hold Pension Credit benefits in the NHS Pension Scheme in their own right.
This will reduce your pension benefits. This will also reduce the pension that would be payable on your death to any future partner.
A Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) is used by the courts to decide if or how a pension should be shared.
The court will provide a Pension Sharing Order to specify how the pension must be shared.
English, Welsh and Northern Irish court orders will specify a percentage. A Scottish court order will be a specific monetary value.
Read more information about pensions on divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership on our website.
Implementing a Pension Sharing Order
To implement a Pension Sharing Order, we must receive the:
- Decree Absolute, Final Order or dissolution order;
- Final Pension Sharing Consent Order including a Pension Sharing Annex or Qualifying Agreement pertaining to the order;
- full names and National Insurance (NI) numbers of the Scheme member and former spouse or civil partner including any maiden names;
- payment for implementing the order.
If you’re a member of multiple NHS Pension Schemes, the Pension Sharing Annex must specify which Section or Scheme is to be shared. If multiple Sections or Schemes are to be shared, an Annex must be provided for each one.
The court order provided must be supplied by an English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish court.
The effective date is the latest date of either:
- The Decree Absolute or dissolution order
- 28 days after the court order was made
We have 4 months to implement a Sharing Order once we receive all the information we require. This is known as the implementation period. Both the member and the former partner will receive a notice of discharge of liability. This confirms the order has been implemented.
A Pension Sharing Order may be reversed with a Variation Order from the Courts. Contact your solicitor about this as there are strict time limits. If a Variation Order is made, there’s a charge to implement this.
Pension Sharing Order implemented before retirement
The reduction to your pension will be increased at your retirement in line with the cost of living.
This means the amount originally quoted to you will be higher once you retire.
Your former partner’s Pension Credit benefits will also be increased. They’ll receive a higher amount than originally quoted at the implementation stage.
Pension Sharing Order implemented after retirement
Your pension will be reduced by the amount allocated to your former partner. This will be backdated to the date of the Pension Sharing Order.
We aim to reduce your benefits within 6 weeks of receiving all of the information required to implement the Sharing Order.
Any overpayment of pension will be recovered.