On the go: The British Medical Association plans to take the government to court over discriminatory aspects of the NHS Pension Scheme, the trade union announced on Monday.
The BMA's pensions committee wrote to Matt Hancock, the secretary of state for health and social care, to outline its plans to help a selection of members in bringing age discrimination claims in an employment tribunal.
The case follows on from a series of judgments involving the Judicial Pension Scheme and the Firefighters' Pension Scheme, where successive courts found the government had discriminated by shielding older members from downgrades to their provision.
The introduction of the 2015 NHS Pension Scheme changed new benefit accrual to career average revalued earnings with a 1/54th accrual rate, uprated in line with the consumer price index plus 1.5 per cent and with normal pension age linked to state pension age.
"These changes made the 2015 NHSPS significantly less generous than the preceding scheme and so the BMA took industrial action," the trade union's website said.
"Although the three pension schemes (2015 NHSPS, JPS and FPS) and the context of the work of the pension scheme members is very different, we believe that the underlying legal principles are essentially the same," the statement continued. "The outcome of the legal challenges to the JPS and FPS would be highly influential in any legal challenge brought on behalf of younger doctors to the legality of the 2015 NHSPS."
A government spokesperson said: “In 2015 reforms were introduced to ensure that public service pensions are affordable and sustainable in the long term. In December 2018, the Court of Appeal ruled that the ‘transitional protection’ offered to some members as part of the reforms amounts to unlawful discrimination.
"The Government is seeking permission to appeal this decision and continues to believe that the reforms were necessary, appropriate and lawful. If the appeal is unsuccessful, the Court will require steps to be taken to compensate employees who were transferred to the new schemes. However this decision does not alter the government’s longstanding objective to ensure public service pensions are fair to public service workers and fair to other taxpayers.”
