January 2025 Newsletter
Welcome to the January edition of the PFEW Pension Newsletter. The New Year is an opportunity to take stock of where remedy is at and look at some of the other pension issues that will be pertinent in 2025.
Unfortunately, many of the issues from 2024 are still unresolved and PFEW continues to work with other stakeholders to change this and get some movement and certainty in those areas. This does lead to some repetition in the newsletter.
> Contribution Increase Consultation
Despite our strong protestations the Home Office has published a consultation on increasing the contribution rate for the police pension.
Our view was that it would be prudent to get remedy done and then look at this issue.
The issue is the target yield for the 2015 pension is not being met and it is a regulatory requirement that it is. The target yield is 13.7% and the current yield is 13.48%.
The consultation gives a number of options and PFEW will be submitting a response by the 29 January deadline.
The consultation documents are in the link below and members can make their own representations.
If there is anything you want PFEW to consider in its response then please e-mail the pension enquiries e-mail which is at the end of the newsletter.
Police pensions: member contribution structure
The increase will be implemented in October 2025.
The issue of annual benefit statements and remediable service statements for active members has not gone smoothly. There is a mixed picture across the country and there is a postcode lottery feel to this.
This is not acceptable and PFEW continues to raise concerns with forces, the NPCC, the Scheme Advisory Board for the pension and the Home Office.
We also have had a meeting with the Pension Regulator.
We won’t rehearse the arguments we have made and continue to make around the issues and the interest being charged.
We have further meetings regarding this in the coming weeks. We are also going to revisit the legal advice that was initially received in light of the issues that have been occurring.
We have asked local Branch Boards to speak with their chief constables around interest and particularly the cost of administering the interest picture.
On that note the NS&I Direct Saver Rate has seen two reductions since the last newsletter and now stands at 3.5%. This adds to the complexity and costs of the calculations.
On a practical level the only thing that needs to be decided at this stage is what to do with the contribution adjustment for tapered and unprotected officers.
The choice of pension for the remedy period is not made until retirement. Please see the October 2024 newsletter for the specific considerations for the 1987 and 2006 schemes.
There have also been issues with the Pensions Savings Statement (PSS) rollout which does not affect the federated ranks as much as the higher ranks.
However, if you are a member that has an issue with a PSS then there is the ability to take tax advice and claim that back from your force.
Forces should have published their guidance for how members can claim compensation for losses and advice required as a result of the remedy.
The guidance should explain how compensation can be applied for and the appeals process if the application is unsuccessful.
From a practical point of view members may wish to get pre-authorisation from their force before spending money on advice. Any issues in this area please speak with your local Branch Board in the first instance.
These are officers who retired before 1 October 2023 and need to be remedied as they have pension in both schemes for the remedy period and you can only have a legacy scheme or the reformed scheme for that period.
There had been an unauthorised tax charge issue for officers who took the maximum lump sum and were due top up lump sums as part of the remedy rectification.
That has now been resolved and the HMRC link for the solution is here.
PFEW is seeking clarity from the NPCC as there has apparently been some push back to HMRC regarding the guidance but also some administrators are processing affected officers using the guidance.
There is a Scheme Advisory Board meeting on 14 January and we will hopefully get some further information at that point.
Members who are affected and who get their remedy figures should consider taking financial advice and claiming for that advice under the compensation framework.
There has been nothing stopping administrators remedying unaffected officers and it is disappointing that more of those officers have not been dealt with.
PFEW is concerned the 31 March 2025 deadline for all affected officers to be remedied will not be met.
> Contingent Decisions – Opt Out Buy Backs
The buy backs are still paused and PFEW has asked the Home Office for an update on when this is going to be resolved and an update has been promised at the Scheme Advisory Board meeting on 14 January.
For a quick recap the issue is which pension can 1987 legacy members opt back into as the legislation suggests it should be 2006 which obviously does not put members back to the position, they would have been but for the discrimination.
PFEW will update members as soon as we get an update.
On the contingent decision front members who made decisions regarding part-time, maternity leave buy back and career breaks due to remedy are not covered by the contingent decision process. PFEW has raised this with the Home Office and await a response.
There is also anecdotal evidence of additional service contingent decisions taking a long time to be considered and approved. If any member is facing issues in this regard or with a potential transfer under a contingent decision then please contact your local Federation office.
There are other issues with maternity leave buy back, part-time hours and the transfer of data between forces. Detective Superintendent Frankie Westoby has kindly produced the form in the below links.
The survey has been completed by hundreds of officers and the data is being considered before a meeting is arranged with the NPCC. This will hopefully be completed in the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, if you have any issues in this regard please complete the survey.
Click here or scan the QR code below
Working with the National Council of the Police Federation of England and Wales, a decision has been made to address the concerns of the membership by way of legal action.
PFEW has a number of potential cases which will be reviewed by counsel. In this matter we will wait directions from counsel as to what additional information/scenarios they want to review.
We will provide an update as soon as we can but please be assured that this is in hand.
The claim remains stayed until at least June. There was a comprehensive update published in November 2024 and this was sent to claimants.
There is work going on whilst the stay is in place so that we are administratively ready to proceed once the stay has been lifted.
If you do get an e-mail requiring further information then please respond to it as soon as possible as this will assist in the administrative readiness piece of work.
The Federation assists members with the ill health retirement process and ultimately represent members at Police Medical Appeal Boards.
PFEW has a training programme to train representatives in this important area of our work.
It is of some concern that some organisations are encouraging members to seek paid for legal advice when the information and advice could be provided at no cost via the Federation.
PFEW is also awaiting updated PMAB guidance from the Home Office, the current guidance has been archived for over two years without replacement.
Regulation 12 of the Police Injury Benefit Regulations (2006) provides a gratuity for those members who are seriously injured as a result of an injury on duty and are totally and permanently incapable of further work.
The Home Office consulted on changing the regulation in 2021 as the member needs to become totally and permanently incapacitated within 12 months of sustaining the injury. We are expecting the Government response to the consultation imminently.
Pension Dashboards
As we go through the year there will be more information on Pension Dashboards. Later in the year members will be able to access a portal where all of their pensions will be displayed.
We have a representative on the working group for this and more information will be published when it becomes available.
Miscellany
The Home Office is concerned regarding the number of opt outs from the pension scheme. PFEW shares this concern as the pension is a valuable part of the member remuneration package.
We are going to do some work on this over the year to try and identify the reasons for non-participation in the scheme.
We are also very conscious that in April the 2015 scheme will be 10 years old and we are planning to do a webinar solely around the 2015 scheme as we hopefully move forward post remedy.
There is a lot of useful information on the Pension Website on the 2015 scheme but if members want other information, please let us know.
We are also planning general pension webinars, for representatives in the first instance, with the intention of rolling these out to members in the future.
We published a pension information podcast at the end of last year and plan more during the year. Again, if there are areas that you would like to see covered then please let us know.
Regulation 36 of the Police Pension Regulations 2015 gave forces the ability to require a member to have medical conditions considered before joining the pension (originally or when opting back in to the scheme).
They could then exclude them from the ill health benefits of the scheme, the member would pay a lower contribution rate as a result.
Regulation 36 was found to be unlawful and no one since that ruling should have been denied IHR benefits.
Unfortunately, the ruling did not deal with those already denied IHR benefits and the Home Office has promised to deal with these members as it rewrites the regulation, hopefully that will be available to us in the first half of the year.
Divorce – we await guidance on how divorce settlements that were concluded during remedy should be dealt with.
The Government Actuary Department is due to produce guidance now it has taken legal advice.
PFEW has taken some initial advice and await the guidance which again we are hopeful to receive in the next couple of months.
For further information, including a podcast on a range of police pension issues and related topics, please click on our website.
Useful Links
> NPCC website. Lots of useful information and guidance, including compensation guidance. The news section is also updated regularly.
Have a look at the website and the newsletters and if there is anything else you would like covered, please e-mail us: PensionEnquiries@polfed.org.
