Government moves to boost pensions for protective services in acting positions

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

The Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing changes to pen­sion rules that would al­low po­lice, prison and fire of­fi­cers who spent ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods act­ing in high­er po­si­tions to re­tire with ben­e­fits based on their act­ing salaries rather than their sub­stan­tive ap­point­ments.

The mea­sure is con­tained in the Fi­nance Bill, 2026, which was laid in Par­lia­ment by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

Un­der the pro­posed amend­ments, of­fi­cers who act­ed in a high­er of­fice for at least one con­tin­u­ous year, but less than three con­tin­u­ous years, im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore re­tire­ment would be­come el­i­gi­ble to have their pen­sion, gra­tu­ity and oth­er re­tire­ment al­lowances cal­cu­lat­ed as though they had been sub­stan­tive­ly ap­point­ed to that high­er post.

The change would ap­ply to of­fi­cers in the Po­lice Ser­vice, Prison Ser­vice and Fire Ser­vice.

The pro­pos­al seeks to ad­dress a long-stand­ing is­sue with­in the pub­lic ser­vice where of­fi­cers of­ten spend years per­form­ing the du­ties of high­er of­fices in an act­ing ca­pac­i­ty with­out re­ceiv­ing the full re­tire­ment ben­e­fits as­so­ci­at­ed with those po­si­tions.

One of the most promi­nent ex­am­ples was for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, who first as­sumed the role in an act­ing ca­pac­i­ty on Au­gust 7, 2012. Williams re­mained Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice through a se­ries of ex­ten­sions be­fore even­tu­al­ly be­ing con­firmed in the po­si­tion.

The Fi­nance Bill would amend the Fifth Sched­ule of the Prison Ser­vice Act and the Fire Ser­vice Act, as well as Reg­u­la­tion 183A of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions, to give qual­i­fy­ing of­fi­cers ac­cess to re­tire­ment ben­e­fits based on the salaries at­tached to the high­er of­fices they oc­cu­pied while act­ing.

To qual­i­fy, of­fi­cers must have served con­tin­u­ous­ly in the high­er po­si­tion for no less than 12 months and less than three years im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore com­pul­so­ry re­tire­ment or be­fore pro­ceed­ing on an­nu­al leave ahead of re­tire­ment.