Civil partnerships

The Civil Partnership Act became law in the UK on the 18 November 2004 and came into force on 5 December 2005. The Act creates a new legal relationship of civil partnership that two people of the same sex can form, by signing a registration document. It is only available to same sex couples, and is not the same as marriage.

Pension provision

The Civil Partnership Act has had particular impact on pension provision with regard to:

1) Pensions payable on death 

and

2) Pension sharing upon dissolution:

Under the act, pension providers have to provide retrospective access to guaranteed minimum pensions for a surviving civil partner. This, however, will probably provide a benefit that will be considerably less than a spouse’s or a dependant’s pension. However, for members of DMGT’s pension schemes, we have historically treated civil partners in the same way we treat spouses for pension purposes. For example, a surviving spouse automatically receives 50% of their deceased partner’s pension under the scheme rules and this benefit is automatically extended to a civil partner.

The Act gives a civil partner the right to a pension sharing order on dissolution of the partnership. The Civil Partnerships Act ensures that a pension provider will provide a pension (or cash equivalent transfer value or CETV) to the civil partner, to the value specified by a court order.

For further details of our policy on pension sharing, please click here.