TRANSPORT FOR LONDON PENSION FUND REPORT

RMTnews :: january 2007 :: www.rmt.org.uk 20 The current Ill Health benefits provided by the Pension Fund have been under attack for well over a year now from the management side appointees on the Trustee Board. Despite the consistent and carefully considered opposition of this union’s nominee and a few others, the Trustee Board had been on the brink of accepting a new set of Guidelines for the granting of ill health pensions, which would have completely overturned past custom and practice going back decades, and severely restricted the availability of the “up to ten years service enhancement” provision in the current rule. However, the management side had steered clear of actually amending the Rule for fear of this allowing fund members to demand the convening of a special general meeting, which undoubtedly would have thrown out these proposed cuts in benefit. But management’s carefully laid plans were blown out of the water on the very eve of the most recent Trustee Board meeting. NEW RULES The government has announced in the pre-Budget report that they intend to include in the Finance Act 2007 a new discretionary power to reduce ill-health pensions when it would not be appropriate to stop the pension altogether. This new regulation will be effective back-dated to April 2006. This is a complete U-turn. As recently as April 6 last year, another set of Government Regulations had insisted that ill health pensions, once granted, could only be stopped altogether and not varied in any way. At the time, management had seized on this new regulation – which was contrary to the clear intent of the Pension Fund rules which allow for an ill health pension to be varied – to insist on ramming through all the cutbacks they wanted. Now it is clear that the government’s new regulations take us all back to square one. Ill health pensions will be able to be varied and so that’s in line with our current rules and current Guidelines. So what’s the point of all the changes anyway? The real reason for the changes was to get rid of the well known benefit that allowed someone who could no longer do their own job for LUL, TfL etc to get up to ten year’s extra on their service. In its place management want to deny anyone getting an enhancement, or indeed in some cases getting any ill health pension, if they can do any paid work at all. This is a grotesque attack on a benefit granted to those who, through no fault of their own, have fallen sick or had a serious accident – a true return to Victorian values! The problem for management is that no-one yet knows what the new Government Regulations will actually say. Therefore their cutback plans must be put on hold until the new regulations are issued. The Trustee Board had no option but to refer the matter back to the Ill Health Working Group of the Operations Committee until such time as the position is clarified. This means that the moratorium on monitoring/means-testing all existing ill health pensions as at December 13 2005 is still in place. It should also mean that, for the time being, all applications for ill health pensions should be considered and granted in line with the current rules as interpreted by the current agreed Guidelines. However, it has come to light that certain individuals are being denied the ill health pension to which they are entitled. Certain management officials believe that the ability to do any paid work, even though the member of the fund may be certified by a medical practitioner as being unfit to continue with their job for LUL etc, means that they can have their application considered, but simultaneously denied them, under the power to vary the pension which appears in a later clause of the relevant rule. In other words before the new Guidelines have been agreed some people are already implementing them. Reps should remain vigilant and all such cases should notified to the union as soon as possible. TRANSPORT FOR LONDON PENSION FUND REPORT– ILL-HEALTH PENSIONS Assistant general secretary Pat Sikorski outlines developments in the campaign to defend the Transport for London pension fund Copyright © Duncan Phillips/reportdigital