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.
Sargeant remedy
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.
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 has been complicated and required changes to our administration software.
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.
Current situation
Unfortunately we have not been able to produce remedial statements or make changes to pension payments as quickly as expected, or at all in some cases, and we apologise to all members affected by this.
We have received the bulk of the regulatory guidance and are collaborating with our software provider to develop an electronic solution for processing most calculations, with further updates planned as the remaining guidance is released.
Importantly, we have also changed how outstanding work is being managed. The steps we have taken are directly informed by previous approaches that did not deliver the improvements we expected.
An Oversight Board has been established, including representatives from the Local Government Association and nominated Scheme Managers from our Fire and Rescue Authority clients. This Board agrees the order in which cases are prioritised, monitors progress, and challenges delays, allowing resources to be focused on completing casework rather than responding to repeated enquiries.
Your Fire and Rescue Authority will receive regular updates on progress from the Oversight Board and WYPF and we will also publish updates on this web page.
Upcoming retirements
If you are planning to retire in the next 12 months you can ask your FRA to request an estimate on your behalf. We will then manually calculate your retirement figures including your Remedy options.
When you do decide to retire we ask that you give more than 12 weeks’ notice so that your FRA can provide us with figures in plenty of time for us to schedule your calculation and send you a retirement pack approximately 4 weeks before your retirement date.
If you give less than 12 weeks’ notice it may result in a delay paying your retirement lump sum.
Active 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 now produced and issued over 90% of all 2025 ABS and ABS-RSS (Annual Benefit Statement Remediable Service Statement). For more information about your ABS-RSS please see the statements page here.
If you have received a statement, or when you do, your record on My Pension will show your legacy scheme for the remedy period. All active member’s pension records have been updated to show membership of the FPS 2015 since 1 April 2022.
If you have not received a 2024 or 2025 ABS-RSS it means that we have not been able to produce it in our bulk production run. We are working through these cases manually and sending them individually as they are produced.
Typical reasons for a delayed ABS-RSS include;
- An outstanding transfer or linking request
- A Matthews 2 claim
- Pension debits
Deferred members
Unfortunately we haven’t been able to produce any 2024 or 2025 DBS-RSS yet. Work is ongoing and we hope to be in a position to do this soon.
Deferred members who are out-of-scope for remedy have a different production schedule and most DBS have been produced. You can read more about these here.
Pensioner members
If you are in scope for remedy you can choose whether you want to receive your former scheme pension or new scheme pension for the remedy period. This is called Immediate Choice Underpin.
We still cannot give a specific date for completion of this project and can only say that we are committed to providing all members with an Immediate Choice - Remediable Service Statement (IC-RSS) as soon as we possibly can.
Working alongside the Oversight Board we are agreeing a production priority order and completion deadlines which will be added to this page as soon as they are agreed.
We sincerely apologise for the continued delays you are experiencing.
For those pensioners that are fully protected we still have to produce an IC-RSS, even though it is extremely unlikely these pensioner members would make an election to change the value of their pensions. However, we have a statutory obligation to produce an IC-RSS and this will be produced in bulk as soon as possible.
Payment of recalculated benefits
Where we have received a member’s IC-RSS decision we are paying any lump sum due as quickly as possible, and usually within a few days. We are also updating the pension in payment on the next available payroll.
Any resulting adjustment to members pensions will be backdated and all arrears paid, along with interest paid the relevant rate of the scheme.
Page updated 19 February 2025
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