Government responds to public pension consultation

On Thursday 4th February the Government has published its response to the cross-sector public pensions consultation regarding the remedy to rectify the discrimination caused by the 2015 pensions reforms. As was the case for the consultation, the response covers all public sector schemes, not just police schemes.

National Secretary Alex Duncan, said: "We are currently working through the 72-page document and we will provide a detailed response once we have had the time to digest the full document and the implications it will have for all our members.

"We know that the publishing of this document is likely to raise more questions for members than it answers, however what is clear is that this remedy will be applied to all those affected irrespective of whether they have launched a claim or not.

"From a first glance we know that there will now be a complex task for the Scheme Advisory Board, who will have the enormous job of going through the detail to establish what this means for each of the pension schemes. Moreover, the Police Scheme Advisory Board will have to work through the detail of this for policing, and there is much to do. We expect to be fully engaged for some time to come.

"Whilst we carefully look into the details around the remedy document, we call on the Government to provide clear guidance to ensure that those approaching retirement are able to elect whether to have the remedy period counted as time in the legacy scheme immediately rather than potentially having to wait until October 2023."

The Government's full response is available to read online here.

PFEW's original submission to the public consultation is available here.

An update regarding PFEW's response to the document will be shared in the coming weeks.