An update from Alex Duncan, National Secretary

13 March 2020

Polfed News

Dear Colleagues

Police Federation officials representing officers from across England and Wales – our National Board and National Council – met this week to discuss important issues affecting our members including pensions.

Throughout this process we have always made it clear that police officers should have stayed in the pension schemes they signed up to, or better. This will remain our stance in any future discussions with Government over police officer pensions.

We have also made it clear we would not be paying the private legal fees for the 'Pension Challenge'. This position remains unchanged. As we stated last month, the Government has already committed to rectifying for everyone the discrimination caused by transitional protections (not only claimants). Discussions continue to focus on how best to achieve this whilst considering other knock-on effects that any remedy will have, including the impact on contributions, taxation and on the most vulnerable, such as officers who have ill-health-retired.

The seven main staff associations: Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW,) Scottish Police Federation (SPF,) Police Federation for Northern Ireland (PFNI,) Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA), Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS,) Superintendents’ Association of Northern Ireland (SANI) and Chief Police Officers’ Staff Association (CPOSA) are working together with key employer representatives through the Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) to reach a solution.

We feel it is worth stating again that the importance of fair and just pensions for police officers – who sacrifice so much during their working careers to serve and protect the public – cannot be understated.

An update with FAQs relevant to all members on the remedy to remove discriminatory provisions from the police pension schemes was published on our website last month. To read it in full, please click here’

Alex Duncan

PFEW National Secretary