This meeting of the Surrey Local Firefighters' Pension Board was scheduled to review a range of scheme management activities, including updates on the McCloud Age Discrimination Remedy, the 10% Pensionable Allowance project, the Retained Settlement – Matthew’s cases, Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) / Remediable Service Statements (RSS), Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) Rectification, and the Pension Dashboard. There was also scheduled to be a review of the risk register.

McCloud Remedy

The Board was scheduled to be given an update on the McCloud Age Discrimination Remedy, a legal ruling affecting public sector pension schemes across the UK.

XPS continue to supply remedy options for retirement cases.

The report pack indicates that data had been sent to XPS Pensions Group, the scheme administrators, for all cohorts of members, and that the team were at the point of tidying up any unusual or outstanding cases.

Retained Settlement – Matthew’s Cases

The meeting was scheduled to discuss the implementation of the Matthews v Ministry of Defence case, which relates to the pension rights of retained firefighters. Retained firefighters are part-time firefighters who are not based at a fire station.

Since the last board the team have been working on ensuring that further calculations were complete, and statements sent out to members using the most up-to-date GAD tool - this is currently version 2.3.0 released in mid-May 2024.

The report pack states that 208 members had been contacted about the Matthew's case, of whom 93 had expressed an interest. Of those, 83 calculations had been sent to the Pension Board, 52 statements had been sent to members, and 21 members had returned options election forms.

Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) / Remediable Service Statements (RSS)

The meeting was scheduled to discuss the progress of the ABS and RSS for 2024. This was to include a discussion of the McCloud remedy and its impact on the statements.

The 2024 combined ABS/RSS were planned to be issued by XPS by the 31 August 2024. The intention was for these to include remedy pension options.

However, the report pack reveals that the End-of-Year (EOY) return for 2023/24 had been delayed.

Risk Register

The meeting was scheduled to note the Surrey Local Firefighters’ Pension Board risk register, which sets out the key risks to the Pension Scheme. This register has several risks marked as 'treat', meaning that the Pension Board intend to take steps to mitigate them.

The delay to the 2023/2024 end of year return has been added

The report pack indicates that a new risk, relating to the delayed end-of-year return, had been added.