Throughout this guidance the term "unmarried" should be understood to mean "neither married nor in a civil partnership".
A classic plus member of the scheme who was not married on 1 October 2002, and has remained unmarried throughout the period from that date until the date they take their pension, may be entitled to a refund of the WPS contributions made in respect of the period of time before 1 October 2002 that the member was unmarried.
This refund should be reduced to reflect the possibility that the member may marry in retirement and therefore bring into payment the surviving spouse's pension for which contributions have been refunded.
The net refund payment made to a classic plus member whose pension comes into payment before age 60 should be calculated as:
Net refund = WPS refund - Initial reduction - Additional reduction
Where:
WPS refund is the refund of WPS contributions calculated before any reduction.
Initial reduction is the initial reduction calculated under the scheme rules, as referred to in Introduction.
Additional reduction is the reduction calculated using the formula set out below:
- Additional reduction = Initial reduction x Factor
Where:
Initial reduction is as defined above.
Factor is the factor from Table P1WPS_NH2 or Table P1WPS_IH2 (Table 1-813 or 1-814 of the consolidated factors workbook) as appropriate, depending on the member's age (last birthday) and whether they retired on normal or ill health grounds.
Where the initial reduction plus the additional reduction exceeds the refund of WPS contributions, the net refund of WPS contributions should be zero (i.e. the net refund to the member should not be negative).
