The top politician in charge of pensions has ruled out reversing changes introduced more than 20 years ago, saying doing so would be unaffordable.
Employment & Social Security (ESS) President Deputy Tina Bury made the remarks after recent public discussion about people receiving lower States’ pensions than they had expected.
The changes were agreed by the States in 2003 and implemented in 2004, moving the system away from pension rights linked to a spouse and towards an individual’s own contribution record.
Under the previous rules, married women with little or no contribution record of their own could receive a pension worth up to 62% of their husband’s pension.
ESS said the old system reflected assumptions about family life at the time, including that a husband would work while a wife would not.
‘Decisions made in good faith’
The 2004 reforms were introduced partly to address equality concerns relating to gender and marital status.
Deputy Bury said she understood why people affected by the changes could be frustrated by their pension entitlement.
“Many women made decisions under the rules that existed at the time and could not reasonably have predicted how social security policy, family structures and retirement provision would evolve over the following decades,” she said.
“Those decisions will often have been made in good faith and based on immediate financial circumstances rather than long-term implications that are only becoming fully apparent today.”
However, ESS said the reforms would not be revisited.
“The Committee is comfortable with the changes that were made,” Deputy Bury said.
“Reversing this decision would naturally have significant financial implications for the Social Insurance Fund as well as the wider public finances, which would not be an affordable course of action given current spending constraints.”
She said the current committee had not been involved in the decisions made more than two decades ago, but had a responsibility to deal with their consequences.
“The States introduced these reforms to address inequalities in the previous system and establish the principle that pension entitlement should be based on an individual’s own contribution record,” she said.
“While some people may disagree with the outcome in their own circumstances, the Committee does not intend to revisit reforms that were approved by the States and implemented more than two decades ago.”
ESS said anyone struggling with day-to-day living costs should contact Social Security to discuss whether they could receive Income Support or other
