NHS Pension Scheme ' Age Discrimination Reversal

• Published date: 21 September 2023
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Discrimination, Disability & Sexual Harassment, Retirement, Superannuation & Pensions
• Law Firm: Weightmans
• Author: Philip Woolham

We are coming towards the end of the process of reversing age discrimination in the 2015 NHS Pension Scheme.

In a nutshell, when the major changes to the NHS Pension Scheme came into effect, longer-serving members effectively received a longer period of grace in their old pension schemes before moving into the new, less generous 2015 Pension Scheme. In some cases, they did not have to move.

Because those members were largely older, this meant that younger workers, who had less time to build up more generous benefits in their old pension scheme, were discriminated against on the grounds of age. The McCloud judgment, amongst others, required the Government to rectify this discrimination.

This affected most public sector pension schemes, not just those in the NHS. Each is carrying out similar, but not identical, exercises. We have just received more details on how the NHS Pension Scheme will manage this.

The period of pension service covered is 1 April 2015 (when the new 2015 NHS Pension Scheme came into effect) and 1 October 2023, after which time the 2015 Scheme will have made changes so that there is no longer any discrimination (usually called the 'remedy period'). There will also be the option from 1 October 2023 for people with benefits in the most generous 1995 version of the scheme to take benefits from that scheme without affecting other NHS Pension Scheme benefits.

There will also be a rectification process for those former staff who have already drawn benefits but who...