The Service strongly recommends that employees seek out independent financial/pension advice before making personal retirement decisions. You can find factsheets and other general information on our Firefighters Pension Scheme pages.
Newsletters
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Newsletter 1 - View Email 17 April 2025
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Update 15 April 2025
Following feedback, we are reviewing how we keep you informed of developments on pensions remedies. This is so you can be fully aware of the actions we are taking as a service. We are planning an email newsletter providing updates, which people can choose to receive. Please use this sign up form if you want to receive these updates when they are released. This will supplement formal communications.
Following our previous update regarding the delayed Remedial Service Statements (see below), we have today (15 April 2025) reported a breach to The Pensions Regulator. The nature of the breach is the failure to provide Remedial Service Statements (RSS) by the 31 March 2025, which West Yorkshire Pensions Fund, as our Pensions Administrator, are required to do on our behalf.
We need to report the breach as the legal requirement to provide RSS rests with us as Pensions Scheme Manager. All Fire Services who use West Yorkshire Pensions Fund as their Pensions Administrator are in the same position.
We continue to have regular contact with WYPF, the Local Government Association and colleagues in other FRSs and are pushing hard for a swift resolution.
Support
We want to remind you of where you can find wellbeing support during this time.
Fire Fighters Charity - Keeping our fire family happy and healthy
Mental Health Support Network provided by Chasing the Stigma | Hub of hope
Update 4 April 2025
Please find below an update on Annual Benefit Statements for members of the Firefighters' Pension Schemes awaiting a Remedial Service Statement.
For reference - this was the update from 21 March 2025 re Sargeant Remedy
We have recently received the following information from WYPF regarding the production of Annual Benefit Statements. Unfortunately, whilst those who are not affected by the Sargeant Remedy will receive statements, those members within scope for the Sargeant remedy will experience further delay.
We would like to reassure you that we are doing all we can to ensure these are provided at the earliest opportunity.
Annual benefit statements - information from WYPF
Production of 2024 annual benefit statements has begun and you'll be notified when your statement is ready to view on My Pension. We're currently only producing statements for members that are out of scope for Remedy.
To help you understand your ABS please read the following notes alongside your statement.
- If you have both FPS 2015 and FPS 2006 membership read these notes
- If you have FPS 2015 membership only only read these notes
This year’s annual benefit statement provides an estimate of your pension benefits built up in your current scheme using membership to 31 March 2024.
Sargeant Remedy: In-scope members
2024 Annual Benefit Statements and Remedial Service Statements (ABS RSS) – service update
Regretfully we will not be able to produce any ABS RSSs before the deadline on 31 March 2025.
We are very sorry that we can’t do this following our stated intention to do so in our December letter to you. We are working with our software provider to fix and test the system and will produce your statement as soon as we can. We aim to issue all statements by 30 June 2025.
What is the ABS RSS?
Your ABS RSS is for information purposes only. You do not need to make any decisions about which benefits you want to take until you retire.
It shows you the benefits you are entitled to relating to the Remedy period (April 2015 to March 2022) in both the reform scheme (FPS 2015) and your legacy scheme (FPS 1992 or FPS 2006) at 31 March 2024 and projected to your 60th birthday.
Why is the ABS RSS delayed?
The production of the statements has been delayed because WYPF’s administration system has needed significant reprogramming to comply with the legislative changes. Unfortunately, these changes and upgrades supplied by our software provider have not all worked as expected and have required a lot of testing and fixing.
Although your 2024 statement has been delayed, we are confident that all future statements will be sent on time as the changes we’re making now will future-proof production.
If you are affected by this delay, we will be writing to you individually with more information about it.
More information
The ABS RSS template has been designed nationally for all FRAs and administrators to use. If you would like to see this so you can start to understand the information it has in it you can visit the national member site here https://fpsmember.org/remedy/annual-benefit-statement-remediable-service-statement.
For general information about Sargeant Remedy visit https://fpsmember.org/remedy
Firefighters Pension Scheme (FPS)
- Access your personal pension information (member portal) here
- Access your pension scheme information (scheme portal) here
- FPS Pension Board Information
Firefighters' Pension Scheme | Local Government Association has lots of useful background information.
If you have a query is in relation to your pension scheme, please contact the Pension Administrators using the details below:
West Yorkshire Pension Fund
P. O. Box 67
Bradford
BD1 1UP
Phone: 01274 434999
Email: pensions@wypf.org.uk
The Tracing Group
We have asked The Tracing Group to help us confirm details of a small number of people who are receiving our pensions. If you're in any doubt about any correspondence you've received please contact us.