Minutes:
CG provided a summary of the position on ID, whilst waiting for the Remedy legislation to rectify the age discrimination caused by the transitional protections built into public sector pension schemes, including FPS 2015. The FPS Remedy legislation was not expected to be in force until October 2023. (A copy was filed with the signed minutes and marked as Item 9).
She explained that informal and non-statutory guidance had been issued by the Home Office (HO) in August 2020 to address issues of potential hardship for those members with pensions coming into payment (later becoming known as “Category 1” cases) who would be eligible for a higher pension once the age discrimination remedy legislation was in place. This guidance had been updated in June 2021 and had confirmed that employers could rely on Section 61 of the Equalities Act 2010 to process ID cases.
In October 2021, the FBU and LGA had jointly issued a Memorandum of Understanding and Framework, to provide a consistent approach to ID cases, which FRAs were encouraged to adopt.
Whilst NCC had been minded to adopt the Framework, on 29 November 2021 HM Treasury had published a note which set out that in their view the ID cases could not be processed under Section 61 of the Equalities Act 2010, before the Remedy legislation was in place. The HO guidance had then been withdrawn.
The Scheme Manager had followed the HO guidance for the two eligible members retiring from NFRS whilst it had been in place. A further case had been treated as a pipeline case after the guidance was withdrawn. Work had been undertaken to determine the number of Category 1 (members coming up to retirement) and Category 2 cases (members already retired).
There had been a period following the withdrawal of the HO guidance during which no retirements, where ID could apply, had occurred until a recent request had been received from a FPS member. An updated ID Framework had been expected for the last 6 months but had not yet been issued. At its meeting on 3 May 2022, the Board was informed that the Scheme Manager was about to formally confirm a decision to follow the previous HO guidance (i.e. the June 2021 version), as a temporary measure until the ID Framework was reissued, at which point it was expected that the Framework would be adopted by NFRS. There had been no further changes since May 2022.
The CFO confirmed that he was in agreement with the update given by CG. He added that he was not expecting a significant number of Category 1 cases and therefore the risks to the Scheme and the FRA of applying ID were low.
GT reported that the FBU was expected to issue legal proceedings against individual FRAs who were not processing Category 1 and 2 cases. The FBU was of the view that all ID cases should be processed. He was unsure of timescale for the issuing of legal proceedings.
CG believed that most FRAs were processing Category 1 cases but not Category 2 cases. It was hoped that as NFRS was processing Category 1 cases, the risk of litigation by the FBU would be low.
The Chair thanked the officers for the detailed update on the current position.