The Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA) has provided its formal response to the remedy proposal set out by the HM Treasury in the Government’s Public Pensions Consultation.
The public consultation was published on 16 July after the Court of Appeal ruled that the Government’s changes to pensions in relation to the introduction of transitional arrangements was discriminatory on the grounds of age.
The aim of the consultation is to gather feedback on the proposed ways of implementing a remedy to the discrimination.
The PSA has provided a joint response with the Superintendents’ Association of Northern Ireland, and in forming its response has taken information from members, the Government and the Police Pensions Scheme Advisory Board (SAB).
Within the joint response, the associations reaffirm their position that the reformed pension scheme should have been restricted to those who joined public service after 1 April 2015. Under the current proposals, members who joined the service before this date must join the reformed scheme as of 1 April 2022, with an associated risk of further discrimination.
The associations recommend that an Equality Impact Assessment be conducted for affected police officers as part of this consultation process. They also raise concerns over finding a workable solution that will be implemented consistently across 43 police forces, with separate police and crime commissioners responsible for local administering of the scheme.
PSA National Secretary Dan Murphy said: “Our association works to support and represent our members’ welfare and interests, and our contribution to this process has been grounded in this commitment.
“Pensions considerations are of great importance to our members as they plan their future retirement from the Service, many of whom have given decades to policing.
“The Government’s changes to pension arrangements have had a significant impact on a large number of our members and we want to ensure a fair and equitable process is put in place to remedy this.”
The joint PSA / SANI response to the consultation is available to read here.
Responses from the Police Pensions Scheme Advisory Board can be viewed here.
Further information on the public pensions scheme consultation is available on the Government’s website.