Home Office
Detail of outcome
On 28 February, the government launched the consultation on the draftFirefighters Pensions (Remediable Service) Regulations 2023 to address the provisions needed to implement the second phase of the McCloud/Sargeant remedy (retrospective remedy).
The Home Office has published a summary of the responses to the consultation, which will make provisions to remove the effect of the transitional protections in place between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 (the remedy period) and implement provisions for a deferred choice underpin (DCU). The DCU will give members a choice of pension benefits at their point of retirement or when the benefit comes into payment in respect of the remedy period, which is the period during which discrimination took place. Eligible memberswill be able to choose to receive legacy pension scheme benefits or benefits equivalent to those available under the 2015 reformed scheme for service during the remedy period.
The Home Office will proceed with laying the Firefighters Pensions (Remediable Service) Regulations 2023. This is necessary to comply with the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act (PSPJOA) 2022 and the Court of Appeals ruling in 2018 in the McCloud/Sargeant litigation.
The consultation response included on this page also provides the updated equality impact assessment of any potential impacts on those with protected characteristics as a result of the retrospective remedy.
Subject to the necessary parliamentary approval, the provisions will come into effect from 1 October 2023.
Original consultation
Consultation description
This consultation document sets out the background to the second, retrospective, part of the remedy and an explanation of legislative and policy changes required to implement it.
The Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act (PSPJOA) 2022 provides an overarching framework to allow public service pension schemes to remedy the impact of unlawful age discrimination. That discrimination arose due to certain transitional arrangements put in place when public service pension schemes (including the firefighters schemes) were reformed between 2014 and 2016.The second phase of the remedy, the retrospective remedy, is to remedy the discrimination that had taken place between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022.
This consultation on the Firefighters Pension Scheme seeks responses from interested parties on the amendments to the regulations needed to enact the second phase of the remedy, as set out in the PSPJOA 2022.