Submitted by Carl Quart on Thu, 25/11/2021 - 15:58
In 2015 the government made changes to most public service pension schemes, including the NHS Pension Scheme. These reforms did not apply to members closest to retirement, who stayed in their legacy schemes with “transitional protection”.
This means that members with full protection were not required to move to the reformed 2015 Scheme, and members with tapered protection could stay in their existing scheme for longer than members without transitional protection.
The Court of Appeal later found that this discriminated against younger members of the scheme. The government is removing this age discrimination from public service pension schemes where transitional protection was introduced.
If you were affected by the changes in 2015, when it is time to pay you your pension benefits, you will be asked if you would prefer to receive legacy scheme or reformed scheme benefits, for your service between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022. This is when the discrimination could apply and it’s called the “remedy period”.
Please note that those retiring after 1 October 2023 will be asked to make the choice as part of their retirement process, and therefore do not need to take any action now. Those staff retiring prior to 1 October 2023 will be contacted directly by NHS Pensions to make their decision retrospectively.
Further details can be found here: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/changes-public-service-pensions. Please also find below some useful facts in relation to these changes:
Whilst members will be able to make the choice to revert back to the legacy scheme for the remedy period at the point of retirement, all members will be automatically placed in to the reformed scheme on 1 April 2022. This may result in some members receiving tax charges associated with exceeding the annual allowance in respect of NHS Pension Scheme membership. It is our understanding that HM Treasury are currently reviewing this issue.
Any further information on this provided to us by NHS Pensions will be circulated to members of the NHS Pension Scheme.