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Pensions Newsletter Issue 4 |
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This is our fourth newsletter and we hope you find this information of use. It summarises progress in all areas and we realise some of this may not apply to your specific circumstances. We will continue to keep you updated.
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We were contacted by West Yorkshire Pension Fund (WYPF) yesterday with the news that they began production of the 2024 Annual Benefit Statement Remedial Service Statements (ABS-RSS) this week.
This suggests that they have increased their capacity to produce statements beyond the manual production of a small number of statements which has been their most recent position. This is a positive step forward.
The newsletter can be found here.
However, you will see from the statement that there is still some ambiguity about how long it will take to produce all statements. We will continue to work with West Yorkshire Pension Fund to seek clarity.
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What we're doing - ABS-RSS |
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We have been carrying out a data reconciliation exercise to ensure WYPF have the most up to date information for all statements when they are able to be produced.
We have 474 past and present staff who are awaiting statements. This includes in the region of 150 retired members affected by McCloud remedy.
We have calculated and validated data for approximately 200 individuals.
We prioritised this work on the basis of who is likely to be most affected, starting with those who have retired. We will continue to prioritise this exercise based on age and length of service.
Unfortunately, there are members who will still not be able to receive statements. This is due to national influences and have been identified within the WYPF newsletter. If you are in these categories, you should be notified by WYPF in the coming days/weeks.
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As previously communicated, eligible firefighters were asked whether they wanted to join this scheme in an options exercise which took place in 2014-2015. Elections to join had to be received by 30 September 2015. This was the ‘First Options exercise’.
A Second Options exercise is currently underway. Nationally the deadline for applying the remedy for Matthews Second option exercise cases has been extended until 31 March 2026.
In order to meet this deadline, we will contact all individuals affected by Matthews 2 by the end of September to explain next steps and provide updates.
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We know that those of you who are given statements may have questions. We are planning to compile frequently asked questions to help with this which we will add to our website: www.esfrs.org/pensions
We aim to update these on a weekly basis.
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We have been addressing the internal resourcing challenges within the pension team which have impacted our ability to complete our work. We are pleased to say that our new pensions manager Lucy will join us full time from next week and will be leading us in the next steps.
We will continue to provide updates via this newsletter and our website.
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