The draft Judicial Pensions (Amendment) Regulations 2024 propose amendments to a range of regulations and orders. These include introducing an employer cost cap in the Judicial Pension Scheme 2022 in order to comply with the Public Service Pensions Act 2013. The draft 2024 regulations would also expand the list of judges eligible to receive pensions under the fee-paid judicial pension scheme regulations and the judicial offices order.
The fee-paid judicial pension scheme began in 2017, following the Supreme Court’s decision in O’Brien v Ministry of Justice [2013] UKSC 6 that fee-paid judges were treated less favourably than full-time salaried judges because they did not receive a pension. It closed to further accruals, as did all other judicial pension schemes, in 2022 to be replaced by the Judicial Pension Scheme 2022.
The ‘Judicial Pensions (Amendment) Regulations 2024: consultation on the draft regulations’ runs until 14 April and can be viewed here.