A public consultation has been published for the detailed changes needed to carry out the McCloud remedy for affected Civil Service Pension Scheme members. These changes will be made in the proposed scheme regulations 'The Public Service (Civil Servants and Others) Pensions (Remediable Service) Regulations 2023' using powers provided in the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022.

This will allow the scheme manager to put right any unlawful treatment that happened, whilst providing members with a choice about their pension benefits for the remedy period, 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022.

There are circa 420,000 scheme members affected, including members with pensions already in payment and members with pensions that will become payable in the future. The consultation can be found at the link below, and will run from 6 March 2023 to 14 May 2023. Details of the questions involved and how to respond can be found on the consultation page.

You can view some FAQs about the consultation here.

Background

The 2015 Remedy (McCloud) applies to members affected by the direct age discrimination introduced by the 2015 public service pension scheme reforms. This is sometimes known as the ‘McCloud’ judgement because of the ruling made in 2018 by the High Court against the Judges and Firefighters pension schemes.

The remedy is made up of two parts. The first part was completed last year with all current active members of the Civil Service Pension Scheme now being members of alpha. This will officially mark the ending of the age discrimination identified in the 2018 court judgement (the McCloud case) via the introduction of a single, Civil Service Pension Scheme for all active members from 1 April 2022.

Legal Process

The aim of the combined legislation being introduced is to put members back into the position they would have been in, were it not for the identified age discrimination.

The PSPJOA 2022 legislates for how the government will remove the discrimination identified by the courts in the way that the 2015 reforms were introduced for some members.

The Cabinet Office will shortly be consulting on detailed changes needed to implement the McCloud remedy, which will be made through scheme regulations 'The Public Service (Civil Servants and Others) Pensions (Remediable Service) Regulations 2023’ using powers in the Act.

Further legislation has been introduced to deal with some aspects of the remedy. This includes tax legislation and further HM Treasury directions, as outlined below.

‘Public Service Pension Schemes (Rectification of Unlawful Discrimination) (Tax) Regulations 2023’ which is designed, as far as possible, to put individuals in the tax position they would have been in had the discrimination being remedied not happened.

Directions provided by HM Treasury,’ The Public Service Pensions (Exercise of Powers, Compensation and Information) Directions 2022’.

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