The Government have released a new response to the fiasco that is the enforced transfer to The Police Pension Regulations 2015 of a large number of serving officers that were previously on The Police Pension Regulations 1987, or The Police Pension Regulations 2006.
If you have been following the case, you will know that the Government lost an appeal by the Fire Brigades Union Over a similar scheme.
The paper, signed off by RT HON STEVE BARCLAY MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, proposed
…the introduction of a ‘deferred choice underpin’ (DCU) as the way to remedy the identified discrimination. This approach
will enable eligible members, when they retire with a pension, to choose whether the legacy or reformed schemes would be better for them for the period between 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022.
It is clear that the Government intend to reintroduce the scheme (or similar) on 1 April 2022, at which point every serving officer will transfer.
In the meantime, serving officers who have retired, or who will retire between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022, will have the choice as to whether they wish to receive benefits from the relevant legacy scheme or to instead receive the benefits that would have been available from the 2015 scheme.
Those who have already retired and/or received a pension award will be offered a choice as soon as practicable after necessary legislative and process changes can be made.
Here is the document –
I am sure a lot of retired officers will want to know how far back will this go? I retired on an injury award pension in 1989 and have configured my living based on the sum I get now. Any reduction would be a disaster but an increase would be most welcome?
This ONLY affects officers that were transferred to the 2015 scheme.