A further update.
The Department of education will only take an application within 6 months of a "Confirmed" retirement date. The employer in the forms is not the IoT / TU where I have worked for over 20 years, its the department, so when they talk about the employer approval / decisions these rest with the department.
It is a big decision to retire and to be able to confirm it six months out is a big step. The form can of course be submitted closer to retirement but I think it takes at least 3-4 months to process.
The institutions pension department assessed the PAY as 3 years. Thats 19 + (4+2) +3 -25 4 years degree, 2 years masters and 3 years post qualification experience. The form hasn't been sent to the department yet as I have yet to confirm my retirement date.
And then the abatement starts.
I also found out that the supplementary pension amount is calculated by my institutions pension and payroll department and it is recalculated anytime there is a change in the pay of the grade, or the SW / Pension rates.
A further complication is that if your Professional added years post was with another organisation and you transferred in the service, it could be possible to use this as the PAY post. Can happen when a Public Servant transfers into the education sector for example from another public sector area. This would probably give the PAY applicant the choice of the best of first or first permanent in their current organisation and first or first permanent in the PS. This would be interesting as the HR files if a lot of time has passed may no longer exist in the first organisation with the detail required to make a PAY.