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Top e-government news, updated daily, and regular features from the top people in the public sector.
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| Unison loses pensions appeal |
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A trade union attempt to force an enquiry into the Government’s decision to introduce pension laws that prevent thousands of local government workers from taking early retirement has failed.
Unison, the public services trade union, applied for a judicial review of the Government’s decision to abolish the so-called Rule of 85 for members of the Local Government Pension Scheme.
The rule allows scheme members to take early retirement on full benefits provided the sum of their age and length of service as a local government employee is equal to 85.
The court upheld the Government’s view that the rule is discriminatory and therefore breaches UK and European Union law.
Under the rule, a worker’s ability to take advantage of the early retirement offer is determined by how old they are when they join the scheme, which means workers who join when they are older are in a worse position than those who join at a younger age.
A worker who joins the scheme aged 50 and works for ten years would not be able to take early retirement on full benefits while another 60-year-old worker who joined the scheme aged 35 would.
Roderick Morton, a pensions lawyer at Herbert Smith, said the decision had ramifications beyond the Local Government Pension Scheme.
"The ruling will affect all workers who transferred from Local Government to private sector employers because those employers were largely required to mirror the Local Government Pension Scheme.
"Those employers may want to remove the rule of 85 from their schemes and today’s ruling provides strong support for doing so."
Hundreds of thousands of local government workers have transferred to private employers and Mr Morton said each pension scheme will have to consider its circumstances.
"Perhaps the greater problem arises for those employers who wish to retain the rule who may find this difficult to do as a result of this judgment."
"There are specific exemptions in the UK legislation for a number of discriminatory pension practices but, given the Government's position on this case, it seems unlikely that they will extend those exemptions to the Rule of 85, he said." |
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