-JAN-1993 17:58
PAUL FIFOOT
0372723755
P.03.08
(II) The draft provides that the safeguard will apply to officers pensions and dependants' pensions and, in both cases, whether granted before or after the Scheme is published formally. There is a distinction between pensions granted to officers before the date of publication and those granted afterwards since the date of publication marks a significant distinction between the categories of persons who received pensions in ignorance of what the effect of the Scheme as finally enacted might be for the options open to them under the relevant Pensions laws and those who may exercise their options with knowledge of the Scheme. (This distinction does not apply to dependants since they do not have an option to commute and receive a reduced pension). On the other hand, if there were an increase in salary and allowances in the intervening period, making the distinction at that point could mean that a person who retires between the 1st January 1992 and the date the Scheme is formally published would have an advantage over the person who retired later as the latter's pensionable emoluments would be calculated at 1st January 1992 rates whereas the former would enjoy the benefits of any increase. I have provisionally made the distinction as at the date of formal publication, but you should consider whether 1st January 1992 would not be a more appropriate date. Against this is the consideration that it would be retroactive (and it would be unworkable if you stuck to the idea of requiring pensioners to commute and imagined that applying to existng pensioners), but that would be of lesser significance if you adopted the concept of a notional commutation for the future (see below) and of even lesser significance if you adopted the same approach to pensions to officers which are already in payment. You should, therefore, consider the headings in this section both as drafted and as if they were drafted substituting "after 31st December 1991" for "after the publication of this Scheme" and "before 1st January 1992" for "before the publication of this Scheme".
Section 3(A) (I) Your "assumptions" are that "all officers benefitting from such a scheme should be required to commute" to the maxim Is this reasonable ? I suggest
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