Government faces legal challenge over impact of pension changes on teachers and doctors

Law firm Leigh Day says it is preparing to bring legal claims on behalf of teachers and doctors against the Government over age discrimination if they have been moved onto a less beneficial pension scheme.

The threat of legal action follows a Court of Appeal ruling in December last year which found that the Ministry of Justice had discriminated against judges on the grounds of age, race and equal pay in relation to changes to their pension. The Court also found for firefighters on a separate challenge on the same issue.

In June this year the Supreme Court refused the Government’s application for permission to appeal the ruling.

Last month the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss said in a written ministerial statement that the Government had accepted that a difference in treatment arising out of 'transition protection' that the Court of Appeal identified as unlawful age discrimination would need to be remedied across pension schemes for the NHS, civil service, local government, teachers, police, armed forces, judiciary and fire and rescue workers.

Leigh Day, which already represents around 15,000 police officers whose claims for age discrimination have been lodged with the Employment Tribunal, is now threatening legal action on behalf of teachers and doctors over the changes to pensions introduced in April 2015.

Brought in with the intention of reducing the cost of public sector pensions, the changes were introduced in such a way as to protect older public sector workers by allowing them to remain in their current pension scheme but ejecting younger workers born after a certain date from those schemes, “despite the contributions they had already made and forcing them to join far less valuable schemes”, the law firm said.

The negative consequences of the changes and the tax implications were only now being realised by many public sector workers, it added.

Leigh Day said that even if the Government made changes now to address the discrimination going forward, there was no guarantee that it would compensate public sector workers for the past discrimination that had been taking place since April 2015 unless they brought a legal challenge.

Nigel Mackay, partner at Leigh Day, said: “We believe the government is short-changing hundreds of thousands of hard-working doctors and teachers. Public sector pension schemes have been known to provide better than average benefits to reflect the valuable contribution that those in the public sector make to society. However, the changes made by the government have unfairly left younger public sector workers out of pocket.  

“As a result of the Supreme Court ruling in June the government has ran out of options in relation to those judges and firefighters who have brought claims. However, it has not made any commitments to remedy the issue for any judges or firefighters who have not brought claims, or any other public sector workers, including doctors or teachers, that have been affected by the same changes to their pension policy.”