The Government are announcing a pause to one element of the valuations of public service pensions, following a Court ruling on part of the 2015 pension reforms.
The coalition Government introduced reforms to public sector pensions, meaning most public sector workers were moved to new pension schemes in 2015.
In December 2018, the Court of Appeal ruled that the “transitional protection” offered to some members as part of the reforms amounts to unlawful discrimination. The Government are seeking permission to appeal this decision. If this is unsuccessful, the Court will require steps to be taken to compensate employees who were transferred to the new schemes.
A mechanism for assessing the value of pensions (the “cost control mechanism”) was also introduced as part of the 2015 reforms. In September of last year, the Government announced that provisional results indicated that the cost control mechanism would be engaged, triggering automatic changes to member benefits.
However, given the potentially significant but uncertain impact of the Court of Appeal judgment, it is not now possible to assess the value of the current public service pension arrangements with any certainty. The provisional estimate is that the potential impact of the judgment could cost the equivalent of around £4 billion per annum. It is therefore prudent to pause this part of the valuations until there is certainty about the value of pensions to employees from April 2015 onwards.
The value of public service pensions will not be reduced as a result of this suspension. If the Government are successful in court, we will implement the changes to employee benefits as planned. If the Government are defeated, employees will be compensated in a way that satisfies the judgment.
In order to ensure employers are meeting the increased costs of providing pensions, the part of the valuations of the unfunded pension schemes which sets employer contributions (which existed before the 2015 reforms) will continue. Employers in unfunded schemes have been planning for these changes in employer contributions to be implemented in April 2019, and the Treasury is in the process of allocating funding to Departments to help with these costs.
Whatever the Court outcome, we know the costs of providing public sector pensions are increasing. The 2015 reforms were to ensure public service pensions are affordable and sustainable in the long term, maintaining intergenerational fairness and ensuring the burden on the working population remains proportionate.
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