Prospective Remedy Regulations
The Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022 (c. 7) (PSPJOA 2022) calls for all civil servants who continue in service from 1 April 2022 onwards to do so as members of alpha. The legacy PCSPS(NI) will be closed in relation to service after 31 March 2022, closing the remedy period, during which members in scope have a choice of benefits. This first stage of the remedy is known as the prospective remedy. These Regulations make the amendments required to implement the prospective remedy, which requires moving all active members of the PCSPS(NI) (including partial retirees in active service) to alpha on 1 April 2022 and making consequential changes to the regulations, pursuant to the requirements of the 2022 Act.
Retrospective Remedy Regulations
For the second, retrospective stage of the remedy, the PSPJOA 2022 makes provision to put right the discrimination that occurred between 1 April 2015 when transitional arrangements under The Public Service Pensions Act (Northern Ireland) 2014 (c. 2) (PSPA(NI) 2014) first began, and 31 March 2022 (the ‘remedy period’). The PSPJOA 2022 does this by returning (‘rolling back’) members who were placed in or transitioned into alpha on or after 1 April 2015, to the legacy scheme section that members otherwise could have been placed in for their pensionable service during the remedy period (‘remediable service’). The Public Service (Civil Servants and Others) Pensions (Remediable Service) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2023 are scheme regulations under PSPA(NI) 2014 and in accordance with PSPJOA 2022 in relation to a member’s remediable service in the PCSPS(NI) and alpha. These Regulations provide for affected NICS Pension Scheme members to make a choice for their remediable service, between receiving legacy PCSPS(NI) scheme benefits or reformed alpha scheme benefits payable from the legacy scheme, in accordance with provisions under the PSPJOA 2022.