Police and Armed Forces Pensions

Police officers and members of the armed forces have their own dedicated pension schemes, reflecting the distinctive and often physically demanding nature of these careers. Since 2015, most serving police officers have built up pension under the Police Pension Scheme 2015, a career average scheme that replaced older final salary arrangements, while serving members of the Royal Navy, Army, and RAF build up pension under the Armed Forces Pension Scheme 2015 (AFPS 2015), which replaced the earlier AFPS 1975 and AFPS 2005 schemes.

Both professions were affected by the McCloud age discrimination remedy, which gives many members who served through the transition period between 2015 and 2022 a choice between their legacy scheme benefits and their 2015 scheme benefits for that period — a decision that can make a genuinely significant difference given how different the legacy and reformed schemes are in terms of retirement ages and benefit structure. The guides below explain how the 2015 police and armed forces schemes work, the distinctive features of military pensions such as the Early Departure Payment, and how the McCloud remedy choice works in practice for police officers and firefighters.