The civil servant responsible for increasing the state pension age to 67 is retiring at 61 with a £1.8 million pension pot.
The former-permanent secretary to the Department for Work and Pensions, who oversaw part of the process of increasing the state pension age to 68, did retire at 61 with this pension pot. But civil servants don’t make policy decisions, meaning he didn’t decide to raise the age himself.
A Facebook post making a number of claims about Sir Robert Devereux, the former permanent secretary for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), has been shared over a million times on Facebook.
“The civil servant responsible for increasing the state pension age to 67 is retiring at 61 with a £1.8 million pension pot. He will receive £85,000 a year and a lump sum of £245,000
“He’s the secretary for the Department for Works and Pensions
“His name: Sir Robert Devereux.”
The figures on Sir Robert’s pension allocations are broadly correct. According to DWP accounts for 2016/17 he had accrued a pension of £80-85,000 a year and a lump sum on retirement of £240-245,000. This meant his total pension would be worth around £1.8 million at that time. He retired in January 2018.
It’s unclear what the post means when it describes Sir Robert as being “responsible” for increasing the state pension age—he oversaw the DWP during part of the time this was being implemented, but he would not have made the final decision on the increase.
Policy decisions (such as raising the state pension age) are made by the government, and are then implemented by the civil service, of which Sir Robert was a part.
The civil service must serve the government of the day. Its code states that civil servants must “serve the government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of your ability in a way which maintains political impartiality and is in line with the requirements of this code, no matter what your own political beliefs are”.
Sir Robert was permanent secretary at the DWP before his retirement. According to the civil service website the permanent secretary is “the most senior civil servant in a department.”
“Each supports the government minister at the head of the department, who is accountable to Parliament for the department’s actions and performance.
“The permanent secretary is the accounting officer for their department, reporting to Parliament. They are responsible for the day-to-day running of the department, including the budget.”
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The state pension age in the UK is currently a little over 65 for both men and women. By October 2020 it will have risen to 66, from 66 to 67 between the years 2026 and 2028, and then from 67 to 68 between 2044 and 2046.
Sir Robert wasn’t working at the DWP when the plan to increase the pension age from 65 to 68 was initially put forward. He joined as permanent secretary in 2011, having previously been at the Department for Transport.
Legislation brought forward in 2007 originally said that the state pension would rise from 66 to 68 for both men and women between 2024 and 2046, the timetable for this was sped up in 2011 and again in 2014.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as opinion as although the pension figures are correct, the description of the role played by the permanent secretary is open to interpretation.
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