Dear Brother/Sister,
You will be aware that the FBU has been supporting 'Retired and Out of Trade Members' in a grievance lodged with the Pensions Ombudsman concerning the process by which the commutation factors applied to the 1992 Firefighters' Pension Scheme (FPS) were updated.
An earlier circular 2012HOC220SS (12 April 2012) explained that this had been further complicated by an appeal by the Government Actuary's Department in the form of a Judicial Review, which focuses on the authority of the Pension Ombudsman to investigate this complaint.
The Pension Ombudsman has now issued a statement explaining this position and informing complainants that all complaints are 'parked' until the decision on this appeal has been made. It also clarifies that there is no need to re-submit or contact the Pension Ombudsman as they will still use the lead complaints submitted by us as test cases should the decision allow the matter to be investigated.
The full text of the statement is copied below for your information and, I am informed, is available on the Pension Ombudsman's website:
Police and firefighters' pension schemes ' an update.
If you are a retired member of either the firefighters' or police pension schemes you may be aware of an issue concerning the past factors used to convert pension into lump sums at retirement and whether they should have been reviewed earlier than they were.
We have received a large number of individual complaints about the matter. At present the question of whether we can deal with a complaint from a firefighter against the Government Actuary's Department is the subject of judicial review proceedings. All the other complaints are currently €œparked" awaiting the outcome. The judicial review is due to be heard in mid June. Although it deals with the firefighters' scheme, a similar issue would arise under the police scheme. If you are a member of either the police or firefighter's schemes who has not written to us, there is no need to do so. If we are able to investigate, then we will use complaints from the ones we have already received as €œlead€ complaints. We plan to provide a further update when the court has dealt with the judicial review application. This may not be immediately after the hearing as it sometimes takes time for judgment to be handed down.
Further updates will be given as more details are available either via circulars or the FBU website www.fbu.org.uk
Yours in Unity,
Sean Starbuck
National Officer
2012HOC0264SS
Circular ref
2012HOC0264SS
