Campaigning
Campaigning is at the very
heart of The Society’s ethos,
history and reputation.
We’re constantly looking for ways to improve the way the pension system is operated – and we’re best placed to put necessary pressure on ‘the system’ to bring about positive change.
We discover issues by dealing with members and their concerns. Through this, we can make changes which are beneficial to the wider Armed Forces community.
Arguably The Society’s single biggest campaigning success was the 2014 ‘Justice for Widows’ campaign. Before the campaign, widows had to give up their pension if they remarried. Effective from April 2015, after our successful campaign, they can keep their pension after remarriage.
Other lower-profile but extremely important successes include:
- Withdrawal, recalculating and re-issue of incorrect Annual Allowance tax position letters to members
- Discovering pensions paid from 1 April 2016 under the 1975 scheme were too low – around 700 people benefited from pension recalculation and arrears were paid in full
- Reinstating the Short-Term Family Pension (stopped in 2015) which had been paid under the 1975 scheme to widows for the first three or six months after their bereavement