POLICE officers need to see the distinction between the numerous \u201cteething problems\u201d with the new police pension scheme and the \u201cscheme not being financially a sound choice\u201d, the Police Federation of England and Wales has said.<\/p>\n
In a letter to members, Andy Fittes, general secretary, (pictured) said he was \u201cconscious that there have been queries from officers, and social media debate\u201d about the new career average scheme \u2013 which comes in on April 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not pretend that we do not have our own concerns,\u201d said Mr Fittes. \u201cbut these are more to do with practical details than with the scheme\u2019s likelihood of delivering a sound pension to our members.\u201d<\/p>\n
In just a few weeks\u2019 time, the new CARE scheme will replace the final salary scheme and a new pension age of 60 will be introduced for police officers. The majority of officers will be paying 13.44 per cent of their salaries into their pensions.<\/p>\n
However, there will be no change in pension age or amount for those who on 1 April 2012 were aged 45 or over, or aged 38 or over and members of the 1987 police pension scheme with 10 years or less to go before retirement with a maximum 30-year pension.<\/p>\n
Mr Fittes added: \u201cOur work with the Home Office, in attempting to shape the scheme to the better, has given us the chance to anticipate what these teething problems will be. We anticipate that forces will find it difficult to give definitive guidance to people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect that it will be difficult to build force systems to deal with the new scheme. We think it will be difficult to train staff to answer members\u2019 queries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe forces\u2019 communications with members about the scheme will be poor, and the accuracy and timing of the overall guidance from the Home Office will be inadequate. However, this is NOT the same as the scheme not being financially a sound choice, and we need to make sure members see the distinction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Fittes said the Federation \u201ccannot give members advice about their individual financial circumstances, including pensions. However, we believe that for members the new CARE 2015 scheme will deliver a good package of benefits that is better than that provided by other public sector schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he said: \u201cAlso we believe that it is extremely unlikely that members will be able to match those benefits for the same cost by the use of private individual arrangements. The Home Office has made it clear that the scheme will be introduced on 1st April, and we would not wish to see members being financially disadvantaged as a result of them opting out of membership.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Fittes \u2013 in a letter to members \u2013 concluded that the Federation has written to both the Police minister Mike Penning and Home Secretary Theresa May with the organisation\u2019s concerns, \u201cto ensure they are documented.\u201d<\/p>\n
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POLICE officers need to see the distinction between the numerous \u201cteething problems\u201d with the new police pension scheme and the \u201cscheme not being financially a sound choice\u201d, the Police Federation\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1797,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions\/1797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}