Explanatory note

in regulation 3, the definitions of

regulation 15 is amended to allow a person to elect that his widow be excluded from entitlement to a death gratuity and to apply the provisions for entitlement to a death gratuity to a widower in the same way as to a widow (regulation 7);

regulations 17 and 18 are amended to introduce an earnings limit (initially £1,177) for children receiving full-time training, in respect of whom a child’s allowance is payable or in respect of whom their widowed mother qualifies for increased pension entitlement (regulations 9 and 10);

regulation 17 is also amended to extend the child’s allowance to cover a person under the age of 19 who is not in remunerative full-time work and who is not entitled to income support and to allow for an allowance to continue to be paid to a child who was not permanently incapacitated at the time of the officer’s death but who subsequently became so while the allowance was still payable (regulation 9);

regulation 21 is extended to provide for commutation of a contingent widow’s pension and child’s allowance and commutation of a widow’s pension or child’s allowance of less than £104 a year (regulation 11);

regulation 22 is amended, and a new regulation 22A is added, to provide for the exclusion of officers' guaranteed minimum pensions from revaluation under section 21 of the Social Security Pensions Act 1975 where those pensions are appropriately secured by a policy of insurance or annuity contract, within the meaning of section 52C of that Act, following a transfer payment (in such circumstances they are to be revalued by a fixed percentage) (regulation 12);

regulation 23 is amended and a new Part II of Schedule 2 substituted, in particular, to introduce a method of calculating credited service and credited practitioner’s remuneration consistent with the methods adopted and the assumptions made in determining a transfer payment under regulation 80 and Part I of Schedule 2 (as amended by regulations 23 and 26 of these Regulations) (regulations 13 and 26 and the Schedule);

in regulations 27 and 29 the position where a person, who has made an election to purchase added years or an unreduced retiring allowance, is absent without leave, is clarified and paragraph 3 of Schedule 7 is amended so that any period of service which is normally reckonable at half length is reckonable at its full length for the purpose of determining the number of added years which may be purchased (regulations 14, 15 and 27);

regulation 44 is amended to introduce minor easements in relation to re-employment earnings deductible from a pension (regulation 18);

in regulation 61 the maximum sum payable on death without confirmation is increased from £1,500 to £5,000 or such higher sum as may be specified by section 1 of the Administration of Estates (Small Payments) Act 1965 (regulation 20);

regulation 64 is amended to cover any cases where the responsibility for staff of a State hospital changes from the Secretary of State to a State Hospital Management Committee (regulation 21);

regulation 80 is amended, in particular, to provide that an officer’s right to a transfer payment shall be at least equal to his right to a cash equivalent under paragraph 12 of Schedule 1A to the Social Security Pensions Act 1975 (as inserted by the Social Security Act 1985, Schedule 1) and so that in exercising his choice as to how his transfer payment is to be used an officer has available at least as broad a choice as is available to him under that Schedule to that Act (regulations 23 and 26 and the Schedule);

regulation 82 is amended, in particular, to provide that, in calculating the benefits payable on death in approved employment, the first of the three methods of calculating a death gratuity is to be disregarded (regulation 24);

in paragraph 1(d) of Schedule 1 the minimum part of a pension which may be surrendered for allocation to a spouse or dependant is increased to that sufficient to secure an annual pension of £104 (instead of £78) (regulation 25).