"Broadly Comparable"

Ghostgirll

Can anyone tell me what actually constitutes "broadly comparable" in terms of a pension fund?

When I TUPE'd from one company to another I was promised in writing that the new company's final salary pension scheme would be "broadly comparable" with the (pretty much gold standard) one I'd had with the old company.

Thanks

bowlhead99

Broadly comparable is not defined in TUPE law and means just what it means in layman's terms.

If something is broadly comparable with another, it means that broadly it has similar characteristics to the other. They share enough characteristics for you to be able to say they are attempting to do roughly the same thing, even if they go about it in a different way.

Comparable does not mean identical, and it could have lots of little practical differences, but at least you could easily compare the two in the different areas and get to a similar result overall - without finding that half of the foundations on which Scheme 1 is based is completely missing in Scheme 2. The 'broadly' bit adds further vagueness and reinforces the fact that comparable does not mean the exact same.

One tenet of TUPE is that the new employer may not (unless the contract of employment so provides) unilaterally worsen the terms and conditions of employment of any transferred employee. If you sign up for a change, it's fine, but if they say you must accept worse T&C's to keep your job, you can quit and claim unfair dismissal. If you stop earning benefits under a pension scheme because you leave an employer and now have a new employer, but you still have access to a pension scheme and those schemes are broadly comparable, it doesn't seem like they have worsened your deal.

Of course, if some of the 'gold plate' has been scraped off your pension for new accrual going forwards in a specific area that you really value, ask for more salary or some other benefits instead.

There is a specific 'pensions' bit in TUPE: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/246/contents/made

Kynthia

I don't think that's a term with any legal definition. So I would interpret it as there are differences, but no significant ones and yiu won't be worse off. Do you have tge information to compare?

dunstonh

an anyone tell me what actually constitutes "broadly comparable" in terms of a pension fund?

There is no legal definition. It is a term that I have used before and one you see often when something is broadly comparable but not like for like. A difference which is unlikely to be big enough to really matter.