On the go: The Ministry of Justice has short-changed 25 members of the Judicial Pensions Scheme who have been underpaid in their pensions. The underpayments totalled £53,917.
The ministry is also recovering pension overpayments of £7,647 made to 12 judges after discrepancies were uncovered in relation to contracted-out benefits.
This was revealed in a data-matching exercise with HM Revenue & Customs relating to contracted-out benefits.
In response to a freedom of information request from Pensions Expert’s sister title, FTAdviser, the MoJ stated that it is recalculating the pension payments made to the judges who have been overpaid or underpaid.
The government is currently recouping the overpayments, while underpayments have been adjusted through pensioner payroll. The MoJ has written to the affected members.
Public sector schemes are far from alone in having poor records. UK pension schemes’ data in many cases remains a ‘dog’s breakfast’, with 61 per cent of respondents to law firm Herbert Smith Freehills’ survey last year saying they did not expect that their scheme (or those that they advise) would have sufficient data to equalise members’ benefits.
