New deadlines for the AFPS15 Remedy RSS plan
From the outset, the Forces Pension Society has urged the Government to fully resource the AFPS 15 Remedy Remediable Service Statement (RSS) rollout plan and to provide timely communications to affected members. It became apparent that the revised 30 Sep deadline would not be met.
On 9 July the MoD updated their RSS Delivery plan and will now write to all AFPS members who will not receive their RSS by 30 Sep. The extension is to no later than 31 Dec 25 for so called ‘non-complex cases’ and 31 Mar 26 for ‘complex cases’ (such as those with pension tax charges, pension sharing orders, medical awards and added pension benefits). You can read the MoD’s update here.
Our sense is that delivery against this extension should be achievable given the extra resources now allocated by the MoD to achieve it. As ever we will keep our Members updated of any further developments.
Maj Gen Neil Marshall, CEO of the Forces Pension Society said:
“We had concerns from the beginning that without appropriate resources being allocated to deal with this important issue, deadlines would be missed. Unfortunately this is what has happened.
“Now, however, we are assured that action taken by the MoD should be sufficient to deliver against the new deadlines. They need to be, if they are to fall within the Regulator’s stipulation on timing.
“This is a vitally important matter to so many in the military community. It has become a pressing concern for many of our Members measured by the number of enquiries our Forces Pensions Consultants have received.
“In line with both the letter and spirit of the Armed Forces Covenant, we look forward to the Government delivering against its obligations to all members of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme”.
The Forces Pension Society is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that provides pension guidance to those serving and retired, across all three services, and represents the pension interests of the whole military community. Last year, the Society’s expert Forces Pensions Consultants dealt with almost 30,000 pension enquiries. Membership of the Society is growing and numbers more than 66,000. For more information, visit forcespensionsociety.org