Sargeant remedy
When the Government reformed public service pension schemes in 2014 and 2015 they introduced protections for older members. In December 2018, the Court of Appeal ruled that younger members of the Judges and Firefighters' Pension schemes had been discriminated against because the protections implemented didn't apply to them.
After a number of further court cases and appeals going as far as an application to the Supreme Court, the Government accepted that discrimination had been found and committed to make changes to all main public sector schemes to remove it. This ruling is often called the 'McCloud or Sargeant judgment' after the names of the people who brought the Judges and Firefighters' cases.
How is it being remedied?
The challenge the Government has faced is that none of the public sector schemes have identical rules or introduced their new schemes in the same way, or indeed at the same time.
The process to implement remedy is complicated and requires changes to our administration software. This will take time to do and we are working with our provider to do it as soon as possible.
Not all members are affected by remedy. Members that are eligible to make choices for the remedy period must:
- have been in pensionable service on or before 31 March 2012; and
- had pensionable service between 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022 (the remedy period); and
- not have a gap in service of 5 years or more (known as a disqualifying break).
Pensionable service does not have to have been in the firefighters’ pension scheme, it could also have been in another relevant public service pension scheme i.e. NHS, Teachers or Local Government. You can read more about this in the Remedy FAQs at the bottom of this page.
Active and deferred members
If you are in scope for remedy you will be able to choose whether you want to receive your former scheme pension or new scheme pension for the remedy period at the point you retire. This is called Deferred Choice Underpin.
We have to show you a comparison of the two sets of benefits on a Remediable Service Statement (RSS) in your 2024 Annual Benefit Statement. We're currently sending out 2024 statements to active members, and during August we plan to start to sending 2025 statements (again only to active members). For the latest position for active members please see the statements page here.
We're working to produce deferred benefit statement RSS and have not produced these yet. We hope to be able to start sending 2024 DBS-RSS in September.
If you are an active member and have received your 2024 ABS-RSS, your record on My Pension should now show your legacy scheme for the remedy period. All active members are now in FPS 2015 from 1 April 2022.
Pensioner members
If you are in scope for remedy we will contact you to explain the difference between the two sets of benefits you are entitled to.
We continue to be extremely conscious of the delay in sending remediable service statements out. We still cannot give a specific date for completion and can only say that we are committed to providing all pensioners with an RSS as soon as we possibly can.
Any resulting adjustment to pensions will be backdated and all arrears paid, along with interest calculated at 8%.
Towards the end of the year we will be writing to all pensioners who have not received an RSS with an update on our production timescales and additional information.
The LGA have also produced two videos giving a summary of remedy which you may find useful. You can watch them on their website here along with the latest remedy FAQs too.