Transparency data

SAB meeting minutes: 13 January 2023

Updated 20 March 2024

Applies to England and Wales

28th meeting, 13 January 2023, 10:30am to 2:30pm

Minutes

Members present

Independent Chair

Julia Mulligan

Secretariat

Chris Moore

Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) – Attending as Observers

John Partington Mike Brown Gemma Lofts Paul Turpin

Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA)

Dan Murphy (SAB member) Paul Griffiths

Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC)

Andy Tremayne (SAB member) Chief Police Officers’ Staff Association (CPOSA) Shabir Hussain (SAB member) Gareth Wilson

National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC)

Nicholas Barker SAB member) Kevin Courtney Clair Alcock

National Association of Retired Police Officers (NARPO)

Alan lees Home Office (HO) Frances Clark Tantara Fox-Stillwell Sara Alderman Iain Barton

Scottish Police Federation (SPF)

Calum Steele David Kennedy

Superintendent’s Association of Northern Ireland (SANI)

Represented by PSA

Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS)

Carle Stewart

Scottish government

Mhairi Kinnaird Finn Mackenzie

Police Federation Northern Ireland (PFNI)

Liam Kelly

Department of Justice, Northern Ireland (DoJNI)

Antonia Hoskins Victoria Elliott Ross Moore

Scottish Police Authority

Sharon Dalli John MacLean

Scheme Manager Steering Group

Daisanne Summersfield

Welcome and apologies

1. The Chair welcomed members to the first official meeting since 1 July 2021. No apologies were noted. Clair Alcock (NPCC) reminded members of the recently formed scheme manager steering group and introduced Daisanne Summersfield as the scheme manager representative on the employer side of the SAB.

Notes of the informal meeting dated 6 October 2022

2. The Chair explained that the notes of the informal meeting would not be published as it was solely a recap of the meeting.

Minutes of the meeting of 1 July 2021

3. The minutes of the previous quarterly meeting was agreed.

Action Point 1: Secretariat to publish finalised minutes of 1 July 2021 on the webpage.

Retrospective remedy – update on timeline and implications

4. Dan Murphy (PSA) explained that just before Christmas, members were made aware that there was a slip in the timeline and that the regulations would not be released for consultation until February and with August marking the end of the parliamentary process, he questioned the impact it would have on those retiring after 1 October 2023.

5. Clair Alcock (NPCC) explained that the scheme management steering group met the previous day and discussed that issue. She said the timetable was leading to anxiety and had spoken with the HO to enquire if the timeline was set in stone.

6. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said that despite the challenging timeline, NPCC should be able to provide software providers instructions.

7. NPCC stated it was clear that those who retire from 1 October 2023, known as deferred choice members, would need to retire on the terms of the regulations. Instead of the software automations, there would be manual calculations, and there would likely be an additional cost. The regulations were clear that deferred members would be provided with a choice.

8. For immediate choice members, those who had retired prior to 1 October 2023, NPCC circulated a paper that set out a proposal regarding timetabling. NPCC explained that they had a legislative requirement to have those statements 18 months after October 2023.

9. Dan Murphy (PSA) asked if there was any likelihood of further slippage in the timeline. He also noted the regulations said there had to be 28 days notice given to members and wanted to know if it was worth communicating to members that planned to leave early that notification to the administrators would be worthwhile and Chiefs would not hold that against individuals.

10. Clair Alcock (NPCC) noted that on the 28-day notice, administrators had raised the possibility of looking at a voluntary notice period of 3 months, and there were ongoing conversations. Frances Clark (HO) said there was no intention to delay further but would keep members informed of further changes to the timeline. The Chair noted that the slip did come as a surprise and asked if there was any consideration of improving communication.

11. Frances Clark (HO) explained that delays were raised as a possibility in November, and even though the HO did not have an entire plenary policy session in December, they provided an update on the delay.

12. Dan Murphy (PSA) asked for a follow-up action point on communications to forces. Clair Alcock (NPCC) agreed and said the scheme Advisory Board was there to advise scheme managers and local pension boards. She said the scheme Advisory Board could take an action to convey the timeline to members, perhaps in the form of a short circular followed by invitation to discuss.

13. The Chair agreed and said the SAB would work with the NPCC to improve communication to forces.

Action point 2: The Chair and the NPCC to work on communication to forces on any potential delays to the respective remedy timeline.

Retrospective regulations – progress, consultation and SAB response

14. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said in conversation with the Scheme Manager Steering Group, there was a consensus to raise a proposal that the Scheme Advisory Board submit a robust consultation response.

15. The steering group said they would support NPCC hiring a legal resource to help draft the response and that the draft should reflect the views of all via a term of engagement letter to protect against any concerns of conflict of interest.

16. NPCC recommended 2 or 3 meetings to outline the issues with the consultation and agree on the draft that would ensure the 3 months are used in the best way possible.

17. Dan Murphy (PSA) welcomed the NPCC’s approach and said previous consultations had an editing process to identify where there was consensus and where individual groups disagreed. The Chair said it was important that the SAB reflect a joint response on matters where there was a consensus. The HO also welcomed the approach and was keen to receive feedback from the SAB from the consultation.

18. The Chair explained that the next stage was to draft the terms of engagement letter and informed SAB members that she had discussed with the NPCC the various routes for procurement for any legal advice.

19. Clair Alcock (NPCC) explained that any Blue Light Commercial contract would be independent on behalf of the SAB and said it was assuring that an independent body would own the legal process.

20. The Chair said she would take an action to set up a meeting with the NPCC to progress the work and needed to discuss with Frances Clark (HO) about the support that the HO provided the SAB.

Action point 3: The Chair to hold individual meetings with Clair Alcock (NPCC) and Frances Clark (HO) on the progress of the functioning of the SAB.

TWG follow-up/progress

21. Dan Murphy (PSA) noted that SAB had yet to meet since receiving the treasury compensation directions. He said PFEW, PSA, and NPCC had all submitted responses to the McCloud Remedy consultation, and the response to the tax route would affect the retrospective regulations and the compensation directions. He wanted to understand how it would all be brought together and how soon it would be until the practices and processes for members could be viewed.

22. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said NPCC recognised the various challenges and said that with the regulations, it would be easier to understand the complete picture. NPCC questioned whether the SAB expected to be involved in setting up a process or if the SAB’s expectation was to be informed of the process. Clair felt there was no point in bringing everything together before the process had been fully defined.

23. Dan Murphy (PSA) responded that the scheme advisory board’s responsibility was to ensure consistency. He noted there were lots of different pieces of work taking place at pace in silos, and concerns around interpretations of words and schemes could potentially lead to mistakes.

24. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said there were forums that could be used to talk about the issues. The NPCC provided a pensions chat every 2 weeks where every point was discussed. It was an ongoing opportunity to invite the Scheme Advisory Board to discuss the consultation issues. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said that would help ensure the SAB showed consistency.

25. Shabir Hussain (CPOSA) said the SAB could not compel scheme providers to do anything. He felt the SAB should be proactive and ask for regulations where they felt the need. He said they should give a list of issues to the HO where consistency was required and provided an example of the huge divergence in the Annual Benefit Statement.

26. The Chair said there had to be an understanding of the interdependencies and the implications and noted that the work would be impacted by the directions that would arrive in February. The Chair took an action to set up a technical working group to set the parameters for this work.

Action point 4: The Chair to set up a technical working group focused on the SAB consistency and processes.

27. Dan Murphy (PSA) said the tax consultation listed 6 items which affected the police pension schemes, such as additional variable contributions that they still needed to write. He said you could not write the pension regulations until there was an understanding of those tax issues.

28. He asked if there would be a consultation process or if they would issue another treasury direction.

29. Frances Clark (HO) said she would ask the treasury about the gaps in the consultation process and provide an update to the SAB.

Action point 5: Frances Clark (HO) to ask HMT about how their plans for the tax consultation process and return to SAB with an update.

30. Clair Alcock (NPCC) noted the difficult position the HO had been put in by the tax regulations and directions and felt there was an action for the Scheme Advisory Board to write to HMT to demonstrate the concern of events outside of the HO control that then affects the timeline. It would also act as an audit trail that recognised the position that the HO was in to ensure their regulations were complete.

Action point 6: Scheme Advisory Board to write to HMT to express the concern of wider issues outside of the HO control that then affects the timeline.

Immediate detriment – revisiting current status

31. The PSA said they had asked the NPCC to reconsider their immediate detriment position as they would have members up until October 2023 who would have retired on the wrong pensions. He said there was the immediate detriment guidance on which the NPCC got legal advice, but most of the Chiefs needed to pay people the right pensions. The PSA asked for manual calculations to be practised immediately instead of in the future.

32. NPCC said they would revisit the legal advice as the tax regulations needed to set out what tax years were in and out of scope. NPCC said resolving any tax risk was a high priority for resolutions to the police pension schemes

33. It was noted that there would be a pinch point on 1 October 2023 where lots of people will defer until that date unless the immediate detriment situation was in place.

34. NPCC felt there was an action for SAB to write a letter of concern that there did not appear to be government action resolving immediate detriment and that it was still down to scheme managers. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said the SAB needed to ask the government if the guidance remained withdrawn.

35. Dan Murphy (PSA) said the letter from SAB should also reference the 6 outstanding items.

36. The Chair said that rather than writing multiple letters, having all the issues referenced in a single letter would be better. (Secretariate note: this action is referenced in Action point 6).

Update on the CARE 2015 annual allowances – read-out from meeting on 11 January 2023 and actions arising

37. NPCC felt the meeting was productive as they delved deep into the concerns and took the discussion to the scheme manager’s steering group in good time.

38. NPCC reported that the scheme managers had 4 main points due to the meeting. They felt more clarity was needed around whom it could affect and was the correct data used. They felt there needed to be more independent scrutiny and modelling of the longer-term consequences. The Scheme managers group wanted to understand HMT’s position that it was the Scheme’s issue and not an HMT issue.

39. The Scheme Manager Steering Group felt they needed to understand the long-term consequences to fulfil the need for more independent scrutiny. One idea was to fund an actuarial resource on behalf of the Scheme Advisory Board. They felt that analysis would provide independent scrutiny and an audit trail through the examination of an example group of members.

40. The second solution presented by the SMSG was to address the political elements, which was why the mechanism of the annual allowance calculations and the inflation that they would propose that a letter is written to HMT asking why it was an issue for the Scheme to rectify as appose to HMT.

41. Gareth Wilson (CPOSA) noted that in the meeting, they discussed the fact that there could be a significant impact for people that retired between 1 April and the beginning of the financial year. He asked if NPCC had asked scheme managers to inform members of that fact. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said that as no decision had been made to change the date of the care evaluation, it was not the time to communicate with members. Gareth Wilson (CPOSA) explained that CPOSA would send out a gentle communication suggesting members may wish to consider retiring outside of that period.

NPCC Advice Note 8 Re-engagement and Retention

42. The PSA explained that the document was starting to get traction and was being used by each force, but there needed to be more concern over how it was being applied across forces. The PSA said there were too many different models among the 43 forces. The PSA requested the SAB write to the HO to make it a regulation change instead of changing the guidance note to ensure consistency.

43. The NPCC agreed that there needed to be a more consistent approach to the implementation of the guidance. An NPCC survey where 39 forces took part revealed that 36 forces were planning on implementing a scheme, but only 50% of those forces were looking at implementing a scheme that addressed both the issues that the guidance was intended for, which was to assist in the retention of knowledgeable staff due to retire and too address the pension trap. NPCC said the way the 50% of forces applied the Scheme also varied.

44. NPCC had commissioned work that looked into whether there was an employer’s responsibility to address the issues that staff associations have raised previously. NPCC said that it should not stop any action the SAB wished to pursue.

45. CPOSA reported that they had held a useful meeting in relation to Chief Officer positions that were still progressing and expressed support for the PSA’s stance as it was fundamental to the terms and conditions of officers currently in place. CPOSA said the overview of the impact of the pensions trap was not visible, and their PRRB submission would reflect significant work on career choices because people needed to be prepared to see a detriment to their original pot. CPOSA felt the consequence would show mass movements of people.

46. HO said they still supported the guidance and looked forward to viewing the NPCC work on the issue. HO said if the SAB did write a letter, any change to regulations would need to consider the wider impact and consider removing flexibility from Chiefs. HO noted that the existing regulations did not prevent the issues from being fixed hence why guidance could be written.

47. NPCC said the reason they were keen to issue the guidance was to help scheme managers address the issues. NPCC said the SAB need to take into account that there should be consideration of the business case for making any changes. NPCC noted there was no court case, so the rationale would need to be explored and felt it was worth an in-depth discussion in a technical working group.

48. The Chair agreed that the next step was to move the discussion to the technical working group.

Pension dashboards

49. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said the purpose of the agenda item was to recognise that the regulations had been laid for pension dashboards and that it would happen from 30 September 2024. NPCC said that in line with the SAB’s remit to provide advice to scheme managers they wanted to make sure SAB were providing appropriate advice and that scheme managers were preparing for the date. NPCC said it was important to note that the regulations and guidance make the scheme manager responsible as the pension provider. NPCC said it would create more onerous responsibilities on the locally administered schemes, and they would need advice from the SAB.

50. They would need to procure a service provider for the dashboard and ensure their data is in order and accessible to the relevant software.

51. NPCC acknowledged that it was not for the SAB to consider funding but wanted to note for awareness that NPCC had alerted the HO and forces to the fact that there would be a cost for dashboards. Through discussion, HO and NPCC acknowledged that it would be dealt with through the spending review.

52. NPCC proposed that at the next SAB meeting, TPR would be invited as they were responsible for enforcing this area of work. NPCC said they would be able to explain how they viewed the SAB’s role on the issue.

53. The Chair and members agreed that an invitation to the TPR should be extended.

Action point 7: Scheme Advisory Board to extend an invitation to the TPR to discuss Pension Dashboards

SAB – revised terms of reference

54. A revised terms of reference was circulated prior to the meeting. The Chair said it made clear that the Sab could provide advice to the Minister directly and asked if members were content with the terms of reference circulated.

55. There was agreement among members for the revised terms of reference. Clair Alcock (NPCC) said that as part of the future work plan and due to the emergence of the scheme manager steering group, the NPCC would like to look at understanding what the membership of the scheme Advisory Board should look like, so that there are equal employer and employee representatives.

56. The Chair agreed that membership should be reviewed, and further opined that historically the SAB had focussed more closely on the duty to provide advice to the secretary of state on the desirability of changes to the scheme, than the duty to provide advice to the scheme manager and pension boards.

SAB – future workplan and resourcing

57. On future workplan and resourcing, the Chair noted there were 2 areas of focus; the short to medium-term and the long-term strategic areas the SAB need to deliver on over the next few months. Lastly, there were systemic issues on how the SAB worked and should work in the future.

58. The Chair noted there was a meeting held at 2 Marsham Street that focused on the work and wanted that group to reconvene and make progress.

59. The Chair said it was clear the SAB secretariat needed to be adequately resourced in comparison to the quantity of work. Frances Clark (HO) said the HO was aware and was taking steps to address the issue.

60. NPCC said they were keen to formalise a transparent audit trail of correspondence demonstrating potential funding options for the SAB and then hold discussion with wider parties. The Chair said she would meet with Jeremy Vaughan (NPCC) to discuss this further.

AOB/date of next meeting

61. Shabir Hussain (CPOSA) asked if the meeting would be a hybrid set-up that would allow some members to meet in person. The Chair said she was wary of past technical problems but promised to explore the option.