Assisting Doctors and Executive members of the NHS Pension Scheme to make an informed choice, in order for them to achieve the most favourable financial outcome, when making their McCloud Remedy claim
Using our medical financial expertise, our service is designed to make sense of the intricacies surrounding the McCloud Remedy, provide you with a detailed personalised report and fully support you in making your NHS Pension Claim. We will help in gathering suitable evidence and will perform complex calculations.
We will work alongside you, your accountant and financial advisers, to help complete any necessary NHS/HMRC forms in support of your claim. This may well need to be completed by you online and you will likely be provided with your own personal login details. We expect you will need to upload documents and evidence. Being prepared and having all that you need to make a claim when the opportunity presents itself will undoubtedly prove invaluable, particularly for the more complex claims.
Our 6 step guide to making your McCloud Remedy claim will help you make the best possible choice on your NHS Pension Claim. It is designed to be as simple but as enlightening as possible.
In the first instance you will need to register an interest in the service to be provided by NHS Pension Claims, by providing your name, job title and email address. Once ready, you will be invited to sign up and start your process. This will be on a first come first served basis due to the expected volume of medical professionals requiring support.* registering an interest will enable us to better manage workflow requirements.
You will be invited to sign up and start the process of providing the required information to support your claim. Documents and information can be uploaded via a secure file sharing facility. A comprehensive list will be provided along with some guidance notes so you can get your data together.
We understand that this may take some time for you to achieve as you may not have everything needed right away.
Your initial fee will also need to be paid and an invoice provided. This fee will also act as a deposit should you need to progress to a Level 2 or Level 3 service. Your invoice will be submitted as part of your McCloud Remedy claim.* the initial fee, is non-refundable due to the amount of work necessary for your onboarding process and initial review.
Once we have all of your information we can review and assess your position using the data provided.
This initial review is important, to ensure the historic figures provided by the NHS Business Service Authority, NHS Pensions and Employers is accurate. From experience this has not always been the case as some members have received inaccurate Annual Allowance statements, AA Data and Service Extracts and Total Reward Statements.
Inaccurate data has also led to a range of issues including the underpayment and overpayment of tax to the HMRC. If we feel your data is wrong, we will ask for further information or for this to be checked and revised by the NHSBSA. * you may have noticed that your NHS AA Data Extract does not match your paper AA statements or the paper statements have changed retrospectively over the years which should not be the case, particularly as you have been using them to calculate AA tax liabilities.
Once we finalise our calculations and research, we report back to you where we believe you stand with regards to the McCloud Remedy. We will show you your position, pre and post McCloud, so you can see the differences in potential pension benefits and AA taxation.
We also provide an opinion on any financial loss suffered as a result of the discrimination eg. tax rebates, interest payments, missing service, cancelled added years, reduced earnings, professional fees etc, all of which only came about due to the accepted discrimination. All these issues will potentially form part of your claim for compensation, ready to be sent to the NHS and be assessed by the NHS Scheme Manager and Actuary. * We can now decide if you need to access a Level 2 or 3 service.
You should now be in a position to make an informed decision and know what you wish to do with regards to your NHS pension benefits, taxation and financial compensation claim.
Only you can decide how you wish to proceed and whether you are happy with the outcome you seek.
You may wish to buy back missed pension contributions or recover your lost added years. All of these issues will need to be decided prior to submitting your claim. * we will of course be able to discuss this with you and answer any questions you may have.
When you are ready to submit your claim, we are able to support you with this process, which we expect you will need to make direct to NHS Pensions and the HMRC.
You may need to claim back overpaid tax or deal with any underpaid tax or pension contributions. Scheme Pays Elections may also need to be revised or new submissions made as part of your McCloud remedy. It is at this point that the NHS Pension Claims service fee balance needs to be settled ( Level 2 & 3 ) as our full invoice will form part of your claim.
During this stage there may be the need to provide the NHS with additional evidence or information. You may also not agree with the decisions they make with regards to your claim and have to appeal the decisions they make along with the compensation payment offered to you.
We will provide you with additional support when necessary, until your claim is settled and you have achieved a satisfactory outcome.
Level 1 - Your Initial Report is an overview assessment – Data collection, data checking & feedback. An initial report and guidance for you to make an informed choice on your next steps. All our levels of service require this step.
The initial assessment checks the data provided by the NHS to ensure your starting point is accurate. It is often the case that the NHSBSA Data Extract, paper AA statements and Total Reward Statements do not match. Where this is the case, we will compare our calculations to theirs to help ensure your start point is where it needs to be before comparing your pre–McCloud Remedy and post-McCloud Remedy position.
In the first instance it is important to ensure that the numbers stack up before proceeding with a claim under the McCloud Remedy. Potentially, not making a claim, could leave you worse off long term. Helping you make an informed choice is exactly what we aim to do before moving forward.
If your Initial Report informs you of a positive reason to proceed with a claim, you will be invited to move to Level 2 (NHS Claim), and we will help you work towards making a full claim.
If, however, looks to be a better option, you can choose to end your journey with NHS Pension Claims as you will not require our next level of service.
Your Initial Report costs £995.00 inc VAT. This will also act as your non-refundable deposit for service Levels 2 & 3 should you require them.
Level 2 - NHS Claim You can use this level of service if your Initial Report has indicated to you and you have decided to make an Immediate Choice. This service will help you and the majority of our claimants make a Full Claim required under Immediate Choice.
Having decided that it is in your best interest to make a Full Claim under the McCloud remedy, we will help you with the collation of your claim data and run additional calculations to support your application. Your Full Claim is personalised to you, as when it is submitted it will be reviewed on a ‘case by case’ basis. Your claim is also likely to be scrutinised by the NHS scheme manager and their actuaries so the more evidence you have the greater the chance of a satisfactory outcome.
Our Level 2 NHS Claim service is best suited to those members that had suffered punitive annual allowance tax charges, but in the main have not made substantive changes to their work patterns or scheme membership arrangements.
We will help you with your submission and also offer support, as part of your claim process, if you have to make changes to your Scheme Pays arrangements, as well as claiming back tax payments from the HMRC or the NHS, should it sit outside HMRC timeframes.
Our Level 2 NHS Claim service is £1,995 inc VAT (The price includes your initial deposit payment of £995 from Level 1 with the balance of just £1,000 payable once your claim has been agreed and is ready for submission).
Level 3 - Advanced NHS Claim You would be advised to choose this level of service if your Initial Report highlights more complicated issues, perhaps decisions and choices you have made around your pension. This Advanced Service is substantial and will inform you in more detail about options and scenarios that could, in light of the McCloud Remedy, have disadvantaged you financially, and how you can take these into account when making a full claim required under Immediate Choice.
Members in this category will have suffered punitive taxation or have made decisions to avoid further taxation by cancelling NHS Added Years, reducing sessions and with it their pensionable pay, retired prematurely taking benefits earlier than necessary, paid tax penalties out of savings which should never had been made and potentially made life changing financial decisions.
You may also need to buy back lost service and NHS added years to put you back to where you were before the discriminatory pension changes were made.
These claims are likely to be substantial and will require a great deal more research, complex calculations and evidencing. Level 3 clients will have multiple issues to contend with and require a higher level of service and support.
Level 3 is £TBA inc VAT. (The price includes your initial deposit payment of £995 from Level 1 with the balance payable once your claim has been agreed and is ready for submission)
Claims will be able to include compensation where a member has incurred reasonable additional costs as a result of an agent, i.e. a tax adviser or accountant, having to resubmit information to HMRC. Our invoice will form part of your claim as a reasonable expense. However there is no guarantee that the claim scheme will cover all historic agent or adviser costs.
Would you have had an Annual Allowance Tax Charge, had you not had 2 pension scheme annual allowance inputs?
Did you use your own money to pay a tax charge that should never have been applied?
Did you take out a bank loan or re-mortgage to pay a tax charge that was never due?
Will claiming back time in your legacy scheme prove the best financial option long term?
Did you cancel your Added Years as a consequence of punitive tax charges?
Did you leave the NHS pension scheme either permanently or temporarily as a consequence of the punitive tax charges and do you want to claim back missed service or missed added years?
Do you need to have a Scheme Pays Election (SPE2) adjusted or cancelled?
Will moving back to your legacy scheme result in a new tax bill?
Have you had to pay or incurred reasonable additional costs as a result of an agent, i.e. a tax adviser or accountant, having to submit information to HMRC?
How are you going to pay for any missed service or added years as a result of opting out?
Did you reduce your hours and therefore your income, to help avoid punitive tax charges that may not have occurred had you been a member of your legacy scheme only.
Registering your interest in making a claim is free with no obligation to proceed with a claim.
The service we provide is to help make sense of and report on the intricacies surrounding the McCloud Remedy and fully support you in making your claim. We will work alongside you and other professionals and help complete any necessary NHS/HMRC forms in support of your claim. We will also run complex calculations, which will help you make informed decisions, both now and for the future. Our fees for this service will form part of your claim to NHS Pensions. The Government has agreed they will need to consider fees as a ‘reasonable’ expense for an agent/ tax adviser.
Our fee will form part of your McCloud Remedy Claim to NHS Pensions
The initial fee for our NHS Pension Claims service is £995 inclusive of VAT. This fee will also act as a deposit to access both the Level 2 and Level 3 service. The Level 2 service is £1,995 inclusive of VAT and the Level 3 service is £TBA inclusive of VAT. The balance outstanding for the Level 2 & 3 service is payable when you are ready to submit your McCloud Remedy claim.
