Legacy Issues
It is impractical to freeze pension rules for all time, as the law and social expectations change. When changes do occur they almost inevitably produce unintended anomalies which can seriously disadvantage groups or individuals, and any such anomalies are invariably unfair.
Successive governments have stuck tenaciously to the principle that any changes to public sector (and Armed Forces) pensions must take effect from a current date going forward, and that retrospection would make them unaffordable.
A particularly perverse result of the no retrospection principle is that the very people whose plight led to the positive changes being introduced are left behind as they are excluded from its benefits. However, there are several examples of breaches of this principle which have been made when it has been politically expedient so to do, and the political will has been there to make it so.
Thus it is that the second of the two campaigning roles of the FPS is to seek resolution to these iniquitous legacy issues which bedevil many Service pensioners. There are four main issues and each is complex and detailed. This section merely seeks to explain the principles involved.
For further information members should look at the appropriate leaflet in the member’s area or call our pensions expert David Marsh. The four legacy issues are:
- Widows' pensions for life
- Post-retirement marriage widows' pensions
- One third or one half rate widows' pensions
- Pension troughs
