All Members
Circular 50/23
As you will be aware, as part of the revised MDP Terms and Conditions of Service (TACOS) introduced in 2016, it was agreed that MDP officers would benefit from an Effective Pension Age (EPA) of the higher, 65 or 3 years below State Pension Age for service in the alpha pension scheme and was to be fully funded by the employer.
There was a disagreement as to the date of implementation which led to a complaint to the Pension Ombudsman which resulted in a determination confirming the DPF position that the EPA should be implemented as of 1st April 2016.
Work has since been underway to implement the employer funded EPA and we have received the following update from MoD Civilian HR Pay & Reward.
“Within my email at the end of August I promised to update you as to progress on the EPA project, please feel free to share these details with your members and colleagues.
Since the email work with MYCSP and Cabinet Office has progressed, and we now have details of how MyCSP will resource the work and the associated costs. Moving forward from now, we have commissioned the development of the IT fix, which should fix the issue for approximately 70% of the records. The additional resource needed is for the 30% where there needs to be a manual intervention to amend records to reflect the EPA status, for example there may have been an in-year change to a record.
The individual record amendments will reflect the agreed EPA start date and the Remedy work will also be undertaken and reviewed at the same time. So if anyone puts in for retirement post April 2024, the records should be correct. All amendment work is due to be undertaken over the next 6 months. With the aim for the 2024 Annual Benefit Statements to be accurate. This work is alongside everything MYCSP is doing to rectify records following the McCloud remedy, so both projects are running concurrently.
Probably not much new information here, but I wanted to keep you informed on progress and reassure you and your members the project is still moving forward.”
It is welcome news that this long running matter is now drawing to a close, but we will continue to monitor the situation and engage with the department as this progresses to full implementation.
Paul Hunter
Southern Area Secretary &Â Pension Lead
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