Police and firefighters' cases – an update

Following the former Pensions Ombudsman’s Determination for Mr Milne in May 2015 regarding commutation factors, enquiries and complaints continue to emerge about the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme and similarly the Police Pension Scheme.

Additional payments have or will be made to affected individuals further to directions set out in Mr Milne’s Determination. These payments comprise an additional lump sum payment and an interest payment.

A recent theme from these enquiries and complaints is that the interest paid on the additional lump sum payment may be claimed to inadequately compensate an individual for losses resulting from not having had the additional lump sum available to them at retirement.

The key question arising out of this theme is whether the Pensions Ombudsman will consider complaints from individuals who claim that despite the additional payment they remain out of pocket.

Our Service is independent and established by law to investigate complaints about pension administration and we have discretion on whether to investigate a matter. The Pensions Ombudsman has decided to not investigate complaints about the above theme.

The Government has put in place significant funding to provide the additional payments and arrangements are in place to apply the directions relating to Mr Milne to all affected individuals. The making of these additional payments draws a line under the complaint regarding the review of commutation factors.

Now steps are underway to make these additional payments we will consider complaints, should they arise, about the non-payment of additional payments.