Pensions Working Group meets for the first time

24 July 2020

The West Midlands Police Federation (WMPF) Pension Working Group met for the first time on Tuesday (21 July).

The working group is made up of nine Federation representatives with a mixture of both those in the Pension Challenge, those in the Police Federation of England and Wales group action compensation claim and those in neither.

At Tuesday’s meeting, it was agreed to submit a response on behalf of WMPF to the Government’s consultation on its proposed remedy to the discrimination found in the transitional arrangements on the launch of the 2015 Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) Police Pension Scheme.

The group’s primary stance is that all members should be reverted to their original pensions and remain on these since these were what they signed up to and that any new scheme should be for new members. There are a number of questions within the consultation that deal with different parts of the remedy proposal and the working group will provide responses to these.

Jon Nott, WMPF chair, who is a member of the group, said: “We also moved onto discuss our stance for our members in relation to the expenses incurred. What became apparent was that there were a number of different views within the group and different circumstances, and not all members of the group were aware of the implications of the remedy being implemented for them.

“There were also a lot of unknowns at this present time in terms of remedy, costs and so on. We agreed to gather information and circulate this and then look at a survey of all members to ensure we are aware of people’s level of knowledge and circumstances to allow us to progress further.”

The working group will meet again on 11 August to collate the responses to the consultation.

We will keep you updated with the progress of this group.

The Government consultation, which also applies to other public service pension schemes, closes on 11 October 2020.