Consultation on Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme Draft Regulations

Results updated 4 Apr 2017

Update - Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme in force 1 April 2017

On 1 April 2017, the Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme was established to deliver the litigation remedy in the case of O’Brien v Ministry of Justice and related court decisions.

This scheme has been created following the consultation process and parliamentary approval of the Judicial Pensions (Fee-Paid Judges) Regulations 2017 and some consequential amendments made with the Judicial Pensions (Amendment) Regulations 2017.

Consultation response

This document is the government’s response to the ‘Consultation on the Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme Draft Regulations’, which was published on 15 September 2016. Also published with this response is the related impact assessment and the equality statement.

The consultation was on the draft regulations for the Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme (FPJPS) and also on consequential amendments to the Judicial Pensions Regulations 2015 to take account of the creation of the FPJPS. The consultation received a total of 77 responses. The Ministry of Justice is grateful to all those who responded. It was very helpful to have views from a cross section of individuals who hold or have held judicial office and also from individuals and organisations who have an interest in this subject. The response covers all the comments and views received and sets out the government position.

After having considered all responses to the consultation, the Ministry of Justice has reviewed and changed its proposed policy on two main areas. One is in relation to the ability to take partial retirement when holding more than office. The other is about opening up the additional voluntary contribution scheme and added years scheme to those who have made contributions to a non-judicial scheme.

The final draft regulations that are required to establish the FPJPS have today been laid in Parliament for approval.

These draft regulations have been produced to deliver the remedy following the judgments in the case of O’Brien and related court decisions. This is to implement a scheme to provide eligible fee-paid judges with pension benefits that are equivalent to those provided to their salaried counterparts.

Subject to Parliamentary approval, our aim is to have the FPJPS in force from April 2017.
 

Files:

• Consultation response, 1.4 MB (PDF document)
• Impact assessment, 659.5 KB (PDF document)
• Equality statement, 148.4 KB (PDF document)