McCloud Pension Remedy

 

Are you a former Met officer who retired after 1 April 2015? If so you need to know about the McCloud pension remedy. Read on to learn more. 

 

It’s all about pensions and dates - and it has some pretty big implications for certain retired officers. 

 

Put simply, in 2015, a new pension scheme CARE (Career Average Revalued Earnings) was introduced for all public sector organisations. In policing it’s known as PPS 15. Currently all serving officers are in PPS 15. 

 

However, in 2015, some officers (mainly older officers 10 years or less from retirement) were allowed to stay within their old pension schemes. Why? So, this pension ‘change’ didn’t interfere with any retirement plans they had. 

 

This decision to ‘treat older officers differently’ was challenged and successfully appealed in December 2018. The Court of Appeal found that letting older officers remain in their ‘old’ pension schemes discriminated against younger members. 

 

The government agreed with this ruling and applied it across all public sector pension schemes, including the police. As a result, all serving police officers, regardless of age or rank, were transferred into PPS 15 in April 2022. This meant everyone was treated in the same way. 

 

There’s also a second part of the ruling. This looked at the treatment of officers who had been in the older schemes. For those in schemes [PPS 87 and NPPS 06] up to the 1 April 2015, the Court ruled - that they must be automatically put back into their old scheme. It’s a bit like turning back the clock - ‘as though the 7 years before 31 March 2022 did not happen’. And they set a date that this roll back must happen: 1 October 2023. 

 

 

For ‘in scope’ retired officers, you will be asked to make a choice between your old scheme and the new PPS 15 scheme benefits. But here’s the important bit – the choice is only for the time between the 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022. 

 

It all about choices and dates! The Remedy lets you ‘choose’ whether you want to be in the ‘old’ scheme or the PPS 15 scheme for the 7 years between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022. And yes – it’s quite complex – as pensions are pretty tricky (and this is new even for pension experts). There’s lots of things to consider; contributions, tax, part time pay, gaps in service, transfers – as well as the range of different benefits between all the old and new schemes. 

 

Over the 18 months (between the 1 October 2023 and 31 March 2025) if you retired from the Met – the Met will write to you if you are ‘in scope’, clearly setting out the options and benefits of each scheme. 

 

We plan to write to you as soon as possible but working out the pension benefits for the 28,000 serving and retired officers that are in scope takes time. We need to get the right information to you so you can make a truly informed decision about what’s best for you. 

So as soon as we can, we will be sending everyone individualised letters with accurate, up to date calculations – and that’s what we’re working on right now. There are also a few things that the Government has to still decide (to do with tax etc) so we are waiting until we are sure of all the facts before we get in direct touch. 

 

You don’t have to do anything now. We’re working with NARPO to keep retired Met officers who are in scope up to date with progress. 

 

For our retired officers there will be a website packed full of important information, plus a helpline you can call. These will be available from 1 July 2023. 

 

It would help us a lot if we could have your correct email address. It’s the quickest and easiest way for us to keep in touch. Check that EQ have the right email address for you – and if not – ask them to update your details: