As mentioned in
September's Team ASCL briefing, the Transitional Protection Rollback – commonly referred to as the McCloud Remedy – will happen on
1 October 2023. Members will start receiving communications from the Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS) about this from 15 September 2023.
Please read it- don’t ignore it. Please also read their links to the factsheets on the TPS website.
This only affects colleagues who were in the TPS on 31 March 2012, and have pensionable service during the remedy period of 1 April 2015 – 31 March 2022.
Colleagues will recall that from 2015, changes were introduced to the TPS, moving it from a legacy final salary scheme to the reformed career average revaluated (CARE) scheme. Some members moved to the new reformed CARE scheme immediately, some over the ensuing seven years and some (protected members), not at all. This approach was based on how old you were, and consequently illegal on age discrimination grounds. The remedy, on which ASCL has been consulted throughout, is designed to fix this.
On 1 October 2023, all pensionable service accrued during the remedy period will be rolled back to the legacy final salary scheme. This means any service you accrued during this time in the reformed CARE scheme will, from 1 October, be back in the legacy final salary scheme. Your Benefit Statement will be updated to reflect this. From 1 April 2022, everybody is in the reformed CARE scheme anyway, albeit with a welcome protected final salary link to your legacy accrual. Within 18 months or so you’ll receive a Remediable Service Statement (RSS) that illustrates your benefits in both schemes and starts to give you an idea of which one is tracking better.
At, and only at retirement, you will have a one-off no-detriment free choice. This Deferred Choice Underpin (DCU) will offer you the best of both worlds for your remedy period accrual. You will be able to either remain in the rolled-back legacy final salary scheme with its associated benefits, or if it’s better, to switch to the reformed CARE scheme.
At rollback, there is nothing for you to do, unless, you have purchased some of the CARE scheme flexibilities (Additional Pension, Faster Accrual and Buy Out), during the Remedy Period. These can’t be rolled back so TPS will contact you with your options in due course.