Asked by: Sam Carling (Labour - North West Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to resume calculations of Cash Equivalent Transfer Valuations frozen as a result of the McCloud judgement for members of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
In order to comply with 2015 Pension Remedy legislation (The Armed Force Remediable Service Regulations 2023), updated guidance is required from the Government Actuary's Department (GAD) to enable the Armed Forces Pension Scheme (AFPS) to respond to requests for Cash Equivalent Transfer Valuations (CETVs) and to implement Pension Sharing Orders that relate to a member's remediable service.
Given the complexity of the 2015 Pension Remedy, the necessary guidance has been compiled in two stages.
The revised methodology has been finalised for individuals who are active or deferred members, or are pensioners who have made their remedy choice and whose relevant under/over payments have been settled. Work on requests received on or after 1 October commenced at the end of May 2024. These cases continue to be dealt with as swiftly as possible in order of the date they were received.
The calculation method is not yet confirmed for pensioner members who are yet to make their remedy choice within their election period, or where a remedy choice has been made, but any relevant under/overpayments have not been settled. The MOD is therefore currently unable to issue CETVs to these members.
Once the Ministry of Defence (MOD) receives these calculation instructions, the process and quality assurance checks will be put in place to process the outstanding cases. To mitigate the impact on those individuals affected, the MOD will, on receipt of a valid request for a CETV, prioritise the issue of the Remediable Service Statement.
Information has been published on the AFPS pages on Gov.UK at the following link:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/668cf40cd9d35187868f46a9/2015_Pension_Remedy_-_Divorce_Information_Note.pdf