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Update On Matthews Second Option Pension Exercise - Friday 20 September

Posted on 20 September 2024

There are over 500 individuals that are expected to be in scope for the Matthews second options exercise, and to date we have received over 300 expressions of interest, with work still being completed to trace individuals who have not responded.

The Payroll Team have started to work on calculations and issue indicative costs & benefits statements where expressions of interest have been received.

The work is being completed in the following order:

  • Existing pensioners;
  • Members who are coming up to retirement or deferred members who can take their benefits before 31 March 2025;
  • Members who will be taking benefits after 31 March 2025.

We are aware that nationally different Fire Authorities are progressing at different rates due to different resources and volumes of work. Resources have been increased in the Payroll Team to support the work.

At this time, we are not able to offer any timescales for when individuals will receive their indicative costs & benefits statements as the calculations are complex and require lots of data to be reviewed.

It is important to us that we can process the right data, in the right way, to enable us to get the correct information to you for you to make a fully informed decision.

We ask that you are patient, and you do not contact HR/Payroll team to get updates on timescales as this takes them away from progressing the costs & benefits statements you are waiting for.

We will continue to provide regular updates to keep you up to date on the position.

Coming Upto Retirement & Requesting Pension Figures?

As you will be aware there is legislation that has been passed to implement ‘remedy’ in relation to age discrimination pension scheme changes, this means the calculations of pension figures are more complex and require more information to be gathered to enable the calculations to be completed, therefore the calculations are taking longer to complete.

The payroll team are working through requests and are prioritising requests to ensure individuals will receive their calculations before they leave the service.

We ask that you are patient in receiving your figures and where possible request the figures as early as you can, ideally six months before you are planning on leaving.

This allows the payroll team to plan their work, however please note your information will not be processed until the month of your retirement request as processing earlier would mean the calculations are not accurate.