By Ashley Young-
A human rights firm representing 300 teachers alleging age discriminatory changes to their pensions have begun legal proceedings in the employment tribunal.
Leigh Day Solicitors successfully defeated the government in a pensions dispute involving hundreds of judges and appears to be heading for a historic win for teachers along similar arguments.
.The case relates to government changes to teachers’ pensions in 2015, when most teachers were moved from final salary to career average schemes. Older teachers within 10 years of retirement were protected from the changes, but younger teachers were not offered the same protection.
Leigh Day said the courts have concluded that making the changes in this way constitutes unlawful age discrimination in relation to similar changes made to judges’ and police pensions.
The judges’ pensions dispute began in November 2016 and reached the Court of Appeal in December 2018. However, last year the Ministry of Justice lost its bid to take the dispute to the Supreme Court.
Nigel Mackay, a partner at the firm, said: ‘Despite eventually accepting defeat in relation to our clients who are judges and police officers, the government has made no promise to remedy the discriminatory changes it made to other public sector pensions schemes, which have had a substantial financial impact on hard working people, including teachers and doctors.
‘We have started issuing claims on behalf of the growing group of teachers that we represent and we believe thousands more could bring a legal claim.
We are determined to pursue these claims on behalf of our clients to ensure that the government remedies the discriminatory changes it made to our clients’ pension schemes. Without bringing claims, there is no guarantee that teachers will receive any remedy.’
A Department for Education spokesperson said: ‘Following the decision in the Court of Appeal in December 2018, the government confirmed that the difference in treatment would need to be addressed across the main public sector schemes, including the teachers’ pension scheme.
We are working with HM Treasury to remedy the difference in treatment for all members of the scheme with relevant service, regardless of whether they have lodged a claim.’
The law firm Leigh Day and three of its solicitors were cleared of all the allegations of professional misconduct they faced over Iraq war murder compensation claims. The firm was accused of pursuing “baseless” allegations British troops tortured and murdered Iraqi detainees will not face new professional misconduct charges, after a legal challenge failed.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) had tried to prosecute Leigh Day co-founder Martyn Day and colleagues Sapna Malik and Anna Crowther in that case.