FOUR unions are taking legal action against the government’s “robbery” and “looting” of public-sector workers’ pensions. 

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU), Prison Officers’ Association (POA), public-service union PCS and general union GMB are seeking a judicial review over the government’s withholding of improved pension benefits.

The unions say the government is in breach of a key component of the new public-service pension schemes, which came into force in April 2015, requiring the adjustment of pension benefits if the cost to the government is shown to have increased or dropped outside of a target rate.

The latest valuation in 2016 demonstrated that the costs of the scheme to the government were below this target and, from April last year, the benefits for members should therefore have been improved. 

But in January 2019, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss announced that implementation of the benefits would be paused until the government dealt with losses in an earlier age-discrimination case brought by FBU members on the previous scheme.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said that the delay amounts to nothing more than a “dirty trick” to pass on the estimated £4 billion cost of solving previous unlawful discrimination cases to members of the new pension plan.  

By incorporating these extra costs, the government would try to claim that the cost of the scheme had risen above the target level, thus reducing employee benefits, he warned.

“Less than six months ago we beat the government in court over pensions and their unwillingness to listen to our concerns, and we are ready and willing to do it again to get our members and thousands of public-service workers the improvements they are owed,” he said.

“We are pleased to have the support of our fellow unions POA, PCS and GMB and we are determined to see justice prevail.” 

POA national chairman Mark Fairhurst said: “We are fed up with the government’s platitudes about how grateful they are to public-sector workers during national emergencies, but then continue to deny us what is rightfully ours in relation to excessive pension contributions.

“They need to stop looting from our pension pots and repay what they owe to our members.”

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “The skulduggery from ministers must end and we will pursue all legal avenues to get pensions justice for our members.” 

GMB legal director Susan Harris said: “Many of these workers are now being lauded by the government as key workers, vital to the running of the country.

“When the government took this decision — which it has refused to re-consider despite our representations — were they just people whose rights could be ignored?”