PFEW will not appeal pension Employment Tribunal judgment

The tribunal had ruled that the PFEW “discriminated against and victimised” officers who had previously made claims against the Government after being moved onto pension schemes with reduced benefits.

The PFEW said the judgement had “made for very difficult reading”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday (July 18) the PFEW said its National Board and National Council, which is made up of representatives of rank and file officers across the eight regions of England and Wales, have made the decision “not to appeal the judgment”.

The PFEW said it was “unreservedly sorry and would like to offer an unconditional apology for the distress caused”.

It added: “The claimants’ remedy will now be determined at a separate hearing, and in the weeks and months ahead, we will be taking a proactive approach to engage, rebuild bridges, learn lessons, and implement change.”

The police pension discrimination claim brought against the PFEW was led by Leigh Day Solicitors.

The original claims against the Government were for age discrimination regarding the statutory transitional arrangements, which led to older police officers remaining in the more beneficial pension schemes while younger officers were moved to a new pension and suffered a detriment.

In those claims, the Government acknowledged there had been discrimination against younger police officers on the basis of age.

Law firm Leigh Day said thousands of police officers then claimed that the PFEW discriminated against and/or victimised them by:

• Pursuing, promoting and protecting a policy which favoured the Government’s discriminatory transitional arrangements, and therefore favoured the protection of older police officers;
• Continually refusing to support and/or fund the original police pensions claims (PPC) despite the active involvement of approximately 15,000 police officers bringing claims; and
• Taking active steps to deter, obstruct and/or penalise the claimants from pursuing the original police pensions claims, in particular through divisive and adverse communications about the claim.

After reviewing the PFEW’s decisions and communications regarding the police pensions claims, the East London Employment Tribunal found that:

• The PFEW understood from the outset that that there was a ‘possibility’ of age discrimination;
• Its messaging was ‘unfailingly supportive’ of the transitional provisions;
• It did not provide its members with a ‘rounded understanding’ of the ‘likely outcomes’, instead it provided a ‘skewed and misleading narrative’, emphasising unlikely outcomes, with the overriding objective of protecting the transitional provisions;
• General Secretary Ian Rennie had no training in equalities law, for the majority of the time, there was no one who was responsible for equalities issues at its head offices, and there was no evidence that the equalities sub-committee was tasked with examining issues relating to pensions or the PPC;
• There was no consultation of the membership at large, and little evidence that the bodies charged with deciding/reviewing policy were consulted in a meaningful way; and
• Consideration was not given as to whether there was any less discriminatory way of redesigning the scheme so as to be fairer to younger officers.

In the written judgment, Employment Judge Massarella said: “In our view the potential for age discrimination was so obvious that it cried out for a cogent explanation of what the justification for it might be.

“At no point before May 2020 did the respondent, the overwhelming majority of whose leadership appears to have belonged to the group protected by the transitional provisions, raise any objection in principle to the transitional provisions.

“On the contrary, it actively championed them for the best part of eight years.”

The tribunal found in favour of the PFEW in relation to indirect age discrimination, and ruled in favour of the claimants on a number of claims of direct age discrimination and victimisation.

Leigh Day Solicitors is acting on behalf of approximately 10,000 clients to obtain compensation for injury to feelings and the reimbursement of legal fees paid by officers involved in the police pensions claims.

Following the judgment, Leigh Day said: “The claims against the PFEW will now return to the tribunal for compensation to be assessed, and to ensure that the decision is applied to all claimants, not just the eight witness who gave evidence at the hearing.”

Similar claims against the Scottish Police Federation have been put on hold while a judgment was made in relation to the PFEW case.

Mandy Bhattal, a senior associate at Leigh Day, said the judgment was “an overwhelming win for our clients and a damning assessment of the actions of the PFEW”.

The Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) Police Pension Scheme came into force in April 2015. The 2015 changes meant that older members could stay in the existing, favourable pension scheme, while those born after April 1, 1967, had to transfer to a new, financially inferior scheme.

In December 2015, a legal claim was launched against the Home Office and police chiefs and commissioners on behalf of younger officers, arguing that membership of the new scheme was discriminatory on the grounds of age.

The Government conceded defeat in the legal case in August 2019, acknowledging that moving police officers onto new police pension schemes based on their age was discriminatory.

In May 2020, the PFEW launched its own action against the Government on the same basis as the Police Pensions Challenge. Those claims are still working their way through the Employment Tribunal.

As a result of the legal case – which was the same case as the claims won by the judges and firefighters – in April 2022, to ensure equal treatment, all active members of police pension schemes were moved over to the 2015 scheme.

The Home Office launched consultation plans on how to remedy the discrimination that occurred between April 2015 and March 2022.

New regulations are expected to be in place in October this year, to remedy the discrimination.