I can’t get divorced … because of my pension provider

I am a teacher and I requested a cash equivalent transfer value (CETV) from Teachers’ Pensions in June. I needed to submit the value of my pot to the court as part of the divorce proceedings.

I received a wordy letter from Teachers’ Pensions saying that there may be a delay due to changes to the ways pension valuations are calculated. I rang for clarification and, after an hour on hold, was told that there was no timeframe for my valuation to be completed, and that I could not finalise my divorce without it, unless my husband waived his right to half my pension.

With current high divorce rates, and the fact that there are more women in the teaching profession than men, there must be a lot of women who are trying to get out of marriages but who are having to carry on living with the person they want to leave while they deal with bureaucratic bullshit.

This is stoking distrust between my husband and me as he thinks I’m deliberately prevaricating.

I have a very difficult choice to make now. I can push ahead with the transfer of equity so my husband can move out before the conditional court order is in place, but I’ve been advised against this. Or I can insist we wait. But wait until when?

LS, London

You, and many others, have fallen victim to something called Transitional Protection.

In a nutshell, this was a 2015 policy which allowed public sector employees who were near retirement to remain in a final salary pension scheme while younger colleagues were transferred to less lucrative career average schemes.

This was ruled discriminatory by a court in 2018, and the government set about amending the rules.

As of October 2023, all pension­able service between 2015 and 2022 has had to be rolled back to the final salary scheme – a long and complex task which has delayed the calculation of pension values required by courts before an application for divorce can proceed. The result has been to stall divorces and cause incalculable distress to couples unable to make a clean break. Some teachers have been forced to wait more than a year.

Kristie Silsby of the law firm Willans says that applications for CETVs on behalf of clients can take weeks longer than they should. “This causes an additional layer of stress for our divorcing clients as they find themselves completely stuck, often for months, and unable to negotiate financial settlements,” she says. “For those with long service, the teachers’ pension is often a key resource which simply cannot be negotiated around.”

Teachers’ Pensions is run by Capita, a familiar name in this column, and a favoured contractor with government departments.

Why, I asked it, are teachers still being subjected to unreasonable delays, over a year after the new rules were brought in? Its answer was not enlightening. It blames the “new” legislation and says it is processing CETVs as quickly as possible.

Yours arrived the day after I ­queried your case, but there are sure to be many more who have been kept waiting longer than the three months the government deems acceptable.

Capita has lost its bid to renew the Teachers’ Pensions contract for next year after running the scheme for 27 years.

The Department for Education blames delays in developing automated IT processes after the rule change and says it is looking to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

It urges teachers needing a CETV for a pending divorce to contact Teachers’ Pensions direct. The same brainwave had, of course, occurred to you and a fat lot of good it did!