Business Services Organisation
Update on McCloud/age discrimination remedy & Notice to give on retiring.
Both NIFRS Pensions Department at HQ and the HSC Pension Administration staff have continued to work on implementation of the McCloud/Age discrimination remedy. The 18 month timeframe from 01 October 2023 to 31 March 2025 was always going to be a challenge, for all the public sector pension schemes.
In the last quarter we have made steady progress, roll back has been applied to the majority of our Wholetime members with On-Call members to follow shortly. Members who have retired from November 2024 have been given their choice on retirement. Work is continuing between HSC Pensions and the software provider to automate the necessary calculations. Rushing the changes increases the risk of mistakes. It is important that members receive accurate information to help them understand all of the options available to them.
Unfortunately for various reasons the project has taken significantly longer than anticipated and will run beyond the 31 March 2025. We are not the only public sector scheme in this position. We have reported the delays to The Pension Regulator and will continue to update them as we work through the remedy project.
All eligible members impacted by remedy will receive a letter in the coming weeks giving more information on the delays experienced and an update on progress with a view to managing expectations. All updates will be published on the McCloud Section of the website along with other useful information as it becomes available.
If you have queries, please check the website first. This will help to support us by allowing is to focus our time and resource on delivering the remedy for you. Thank you for your patience as we continue to implement the remedy as quickly and accurately as possible.
Planning on Retiring
Due to the added complexities of pension calculations, to facilitate McCloud/Age discrimination remedy, and the requirement, for some members, to engage with third party stakeholders such as HMRC we request that you provide at least 4-6 months’ notice of your intention to retire. If you do not give sufficient notice we cannot guarantee that your pension will be paid on your retirement date.
Pension estimates will only be completed for members who are coming up to retirement once we have received the signed Retirement Form (SC47) or Occupational Health retirement letter. We recommend you follow up your retirement request with your line manger after you have submitted it to ensure it has been progressed to avoid any delays.
Members on occasion request pension estimates for 2 or 3 retirement dates, unfortunately, we can no longer facilitate requests for multiple dates as it is impacting the resources of the team.
The Member Self Service portal is now live and you can work through various different scenarios and dates on the retirement calculators. Note if roll back has been applied to your record the estimates on the calculator will reflect this. It will not however provide the detail of the contributions owing to the scheme or vice versa to you in respect of remedy.
ACTION REQUIRED