Pensions case decision announced
PCS will continue to fight for pensions justice for members and consider an appeal following the announcement that our judicial review of the government’s decision not to reduce members’ civil service pensions contributions has not succeeded.
Between 31 January and 3 February lawyers acting for PCS, along with GMB, Unite, FBU, POA and RCN, presented our case for judicial review of the government’s action which has cost our members thousands of pounds in the intervening period. The decision of the court was announced today.
The decision taken by the government in 2019 blocked pension changes which would have reduced contributions from public service pension scheme members.
Scheme valuations carried out by the government actuary revealed that future pension costs were significantly lower than expected. In the case of the Civil Service Scheme the advisory board recommended a reduction of 2% in the rates of employee contributions from April 2019.
The government blocked this reduction and over 40,000 PCS members have worked out how much they have lost by using our PCS pensions loss calculator. The average loss per month is around £53, which amounts to thousands of pounds since April 2019.
The lower valuations also reflect the impact of government pay freezes and limits over many years which have severely cut the value of civil service pay and result in lower future pension values. Read the judgement.
We will continue to fight for pensions justice for our members as part of our national campaign. And it is critically important that our members support the campaign by taking part in all-out strike action across the civil service and public sector on Wednesday (15).