Pensions Group Action Claim: new FAQs

11 June 2020

The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has issued an updated FAQs document after seeking legal advice on who can join the Group Action Claim it launched last month.

PFEW announced on 15 May that it was starting a compensation claim against the Government on behalf of members who were victims of discrimination and suffered any ‘injury to feeling’ as a result of changes to members’ pensions caused by the introduction of a new scheme in 2015.

The updated FAQs states eligible applicants to the joint action are those who:

• Commenced payment of subscriptions within six months of joining the police service and have been a continuous subscribing member since that date (except for any period of unpaid leave, maternity leave or temporary promotion to the rank of superintendent) or until they exited the police service, and
• Who were in service prior to and as at 1 April 2015 and in a police pension scheme at that time, and
• Who transferred into the 2015 scheme immediately or who received tapered protection, and
• Who did not therefore receive full protection from having to move into the 2015 scheme.

Claimants must also not have previously lodged a legal claim as a result of discrimination in relation to transitional pension arrangements. Eligibility will be subject to further verification by PFEW and/or the international legal firm Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP which is handling the PFEW claim.

Read the FAQs.