Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Vicky Jenks. She reminded members the Home Office had published a consultation on the firefighter’s pension scheme and remedial service regulations on 28 February 2023. This had closed on 23 May and a note had been circulated to stakeholders notifying them of this. This consultation is for the second part of the remedy that is required to rectify benefits and give members the deferred choice option when they retire, namely whether to take legacy (final salary) benefits or Reform (CARE) benefits for the remedy period from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022) Vicky Jenks said the LGA had raised questions about the consultation as some of the draft regulations do not appear to deliver what is expected.

A consultation on the second retained modified exercise was ongoing.

There had been changes relating to tax announced in the most recent Budget. These have been communicated with active members who would be affected by the changes. Vicky Jenks said the Council had so far only communicated with current active members using the internal email facility. Information had not yet been shared with deferred members. It was not known if the information would be included on the annual benefit statements for deferred members.Some benefit calculations (transfers) had been suspended while the administrators waited for new factors to be released.

The Chair said the LGA response to the remedy consultation appeared to say that immediate detriment that had been paid prior to remedy had not been adequately dealt with. Vicky Jenks said the Warwickshire Pension Fund would continue to monitor any developments relating to the remedial scheme.

The retained firefighters pensions consultation would be closing on 9 June. It was likely anything the Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service had to say in relation to this would be a duplication of the LGA submission. The Fund would look out for any response from the LGA on this consultation.