Summary Transfers
13.The Act also extends the current transfer rights for scheme members with ‘flexible benefits’, giving them a right to transfer up to and beyond their scheme’s normal retirement age, and amends existing statutory transfer rights so that they apply in relation to benefit categories, rather than at scheme level.
14.As noted above, the 2014 Budget announcement indicated that savers would be given greater choice about how and when they access their defined contributions pensions pots. The new flexibilities will also have implications for those with a defined benefits pension pot, and the Treasury have consulted on how these flexibilities, including individuals’ rights to a transfer, should be managed. As the majority of public service defined benefits schemes operate on an unfunded basis, allowing transfers out of these schemes would expose the Exchequer to significant risks. Therefore the Act restricts transfers out of certain public service defined benefits pension schemes.
15.The Act also introduces a power for Ministers to require the cash equivalent transfer value for transfers from funded public service schemes to schemes from which flexible benefits can be obtained to be reduced, in circumstances where the relevant Minister reasonably expects that such transfers, either singly or in combination with other factors, will significantly increase the risk or level of payments out of public funds to support the pension scheme to meet its liabilities.