Police: Pensions

(asked on 17th January 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the cost per annum of reinstating widows pensions that have been revoked under the 1987 Police pension regulations for each Police Service in England and Wales.


Answered by
Nick Hurd Portrait
Nick Hurd
This question was answered on 25th January 2019

All three occupational police pension schemes provide valuable benefits for survivors on the death of the member. The 2006 and 2015 scheme benefits are broadly the same. The main differences between these schemes and the 1987 scheme are: benefits paid for life, rather than ceasing on remarriage or cohabitation; benefits for partners as well as spouses and civil partners; and lower survivor benefits as a proportion of the pension payable to the member.


The Home Office does not hold information on the number of survivors’ pensions surrendered on remarriage or cohabitation. Detailed information on the police pension scheme is held by each Police Pension Authority.

We have estimated with the Government’s Actuary’s Department, by using historical actuarial data, that the total cost of retaining benefits for all police survivors would increase the police scheme liabilities by around £144m. Reinstatement of pensions already surrendered, would increase the police scheme liabilities to around £198m. No annual estimate is available.


As at 31 March 2016 there were 82,268 serving police officers who were active members of the 1987 police pension scheme, including those who had moved to the 2015 scheme for future pension accrual. The average survivor’s pension as at 31 March 2016 was £9,450 a year – while this is not exclusively attributable to the 1987 police pension scheme, most pensions in payment in 2016 will be in respect of that scheme.

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