Police Federation of England and Wales & Ors, R (on the application of) v The Secretary for the Home Department & Anor

Regulation B7(7) of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 imposes an implied duty on the Government Actuary to prepare, review and revise commutation tables when actuarial conditions require it. The Home Secretary has no discretion under the Regulation to delay the implementation of tables once prepared, or to defer them for reasons of affordability or public expenditure. The tables take effect when prepared and must identify the statutory actuarial equivalent used by police authorities. Administrative arrangements may govern how the tables are communicated, but cannot alter the rights and liabilities created by the Regulations.

The claimants challenged the Home Secretary’s decision to introduce revised lump-sum commutation factors under regulation B7(7) of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 from 1 October 2007, although the Government Actuary had prepared them on 1 December 2006. The challenge alleged that preparation, review and implementation of the tables were matters for the Government Actuary and that the Home Secretary had unlawfully considered cost and public expenditure.

The defendants contended that the Home Secretary could decide when to commission reviews and when revised tables should take effect, provided the existing tables remained actuarially acceptable and the decision was reasonable. The central issue was the proper construction of regulation B7(7).

1. The claim succeeded. Regulation B7(7) required the relevant police authority to reduce the pension in accordance with the effective commutation notice and to pay a lump sum representing the actuarial equivalent of the surrendered pension, calculated from tables prepared by the Government Actuary.
2. The Regulation necessarily implied a duty on the Government Actuary to prepare tables and, when actuarial conditions required, to review and revise them. This obligation was necessary to make the express obligation on police authorities workable. The relevant judgment was an actuarial one concerning matters such as mortality assumptions and discount rates. It was not a ministerial policy decision. The principle in Padfield v Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food [1968] AC 997 supported implying the obligation necessary to give effect to the statutory scheme.
3. The statutory scheme did not confer on the Home Secretary a power to commission reviews, determine when revised tables should be prepared, or delay their operation after preparation. The distinction advanced between preparing and issuing tables was unsupported by the Regulation. The tables took effect when prepared.
4. The use of a range of actuarially acceptable factors was inconsistent with the statutory requirement for the actuarial equivalent identified by the Government Actuary’s tables. Once the revised tables had been prepared on 1 December 2006, they represented the applicable assessment of actuarial equivalence. Affordability and public expenditure were therefore irrelevant to the implementation date.
5. The Home Secretary’s decision to introduce the tables only from 1 October 2007 was unlawful. The court provisionally considered that the claimants were entitled to the relief sought and invited submissions on the final form of the order.

Not stated in the judgment.