The Harbour Reorganisation (Compensation to Employees) Regulations 1967

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, that is to say:—

“accrued pension” in relation to a pensionable officer who has suffered loss of employment, means—

(a)

if the pension scheme to which the officer was last subject before losing his employment provided benefits in which he had no right to participate, but had reasonable expectations of participating, such portion of any pension benefit of which he had reasonable expectations as the compensating authority consider equitable, having regard to his age, the length of his employment at the date of loss and all the other circumstances of the case; and

(b)

in any other case the pension to which he would have become entitled in respect of his pensionable service according to the method of calculation (modified where necessary in accordance with regulations 27(2) and 45 of these regulations) prescribed by the pension scheme to which he was last subject before suffering loss of employment if at the date on which he ceased to be subject thereto he had attained normal retiring age and complied with any requirement of the said scheme as to a minimum period of qualifying service or contribution and completed any additional contributory payments or payments in respect of added years which he was in the course of making;

“accrued retiring allowance” in relation to a pensionable officer who has suffered loss of employment, means—

(a)

if the pension scheme to which the officer was last subject before losing his employment provided benefits in which he had no right to participate, but had reasonable expectations of participating, such portion of any lump sum payment of which he had reasonable expectations as the compensating authority consider equitable, having regard to his age, the length of his employment at the date of loss and all the other circumstances of the case; and

(b)

in any other case any lump sum payment to which he would have become entitled in respect of his pensionable service according to the method of calculation (modified where necessary in accordance with regulations 27(2) and 45 of these regulations) prescribed by the pension scheme to which he was last subject before suffering loss of employment if at the date on which he ceased to be subject thereto he had attained normal retiring age and complied with any requirement of the said scheme as to a minimum period of qualifying service or contribution and completed any additional contributory payments or payments in respect of added years which he was in the course of making;

“accrued incapacity pension” and “accrued incapacity retiring allowance” have the same respective meanings as “accrued pension” and “accrued retiring allowance” except that the reference to a person's having attained normal retiring age shall be construed as a reference to his having become incapable of discharging efficiently the duties of his employment by reason of permanent ill-health or infirmity of mind or body;

“the Act” means the Harbours Act 1964;

“added years” in relation to a person who suffers loss of employment means—

(a)

in the case of a contributory employee or local Act contributor any additional years of service reckonable by him in his employment immediately prior to the loss in question under regulation 12 of the Local Government Superannuation (Benefits) Regulations 1954(1) or, in Scotland, under regulation 12 of the Local Government Superannuation (Benefits) (Scotland) Regulations 1954(2), any corresponding provision of a local Act scheme, or those regulations or any such provision as aforesaid as applied by or under any enactment, and includes any additional years of service which, having been granted under any such provision or under any similar provision contained in any other enactment or scheme, have subsequently become and are reckonable under or by virtue of rules made under section 2 of the Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1948, or any other enactment; and

(b)

in the case of any other person, any additional years of service, similar to those mentioned in the last foregoing sub-paragraph, reckonable by him under the pension scheme associated with the employment he has lost;

“additional contributory payments” means—

(a)

additional contributory payments of the kind referred to in section 2(3) and (4) of the Local Government Superannuation Act 1953; or

(b)

any similar payments made under a local Act scheme or other pension scheme as a condition of reckoning any period of employment as service or as a period of contribution for the purposes of the scheme, or, where the scheme provides for the reckoning of non-contributing service, as contributing service for the purposes of the scheme; or

(c)

any payments made for the purposes of increasing the length at which any period of service or of contribution would be reckonable for the purpose of calculating a benefit under a local Act scheme; or

(d)

any payments similar to any of those mentioned in the foregoing sub-paragraphs made in pursuance of rules under section 2 of the Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1948, or in pursuance of any arrangements in that behalf made by a harbour authority, a local lighthouse authority or a person carrying out harbour operations, or by an officer in the employment of such authority or person in respect of an employee employed under such an officer for the purposes of the functions of such authority or person;

“compensating authority” , in relation to any person or class of persons who suffer loss of employment or loss or diminution of emoluments or pension rights in consequence of any of the provisions of a harbour reorganisation scheme, means the person or body of persons appointed in writing by the Minister as the compensating authority for the purposes of these regulations, being a person or body subject to the provisions of a harbour reorganisation scheme ;

“compensation question” means a question arising in relation to these regulations—

(a)

as to a person's entitlement to compensation for loss of office or employment, or for loss or diminution of emoluments or of pension rights, or

(b)

as to the manner of a person's employment or the comparability of his duties;

“contributory employee” and “local Act contributor” have the same meanings as in the Local Government Superannuation Act 1937 or, in Scotland, as in the Local Government Superannuation (Scotland) Act 1937;

“emoluments” means all salary, wages, fees and other payments paid or made to an officer as such for his own use, and also the money value of any travel privileges, apartments, rations or other allowances in kind appertaining to his employment, but does not include payments for overtime, other than payments which are a usual incident of his employment, or any allowances payable to him to cover the cost of providing office accommodation or clerical or other assistance, or any travelling or subsistence allowance or other moneys to be spent, or to cover expenses incurred by him, for the purposes of his employment; and

“net emoluments” means—

(a)

in relation to an employment which has been lost or in which an officer has suffered a diminution of emoluments, the annual rate (subject to regulation 45 of these regulations) of the emoluments of that employment immediately before such loss or diminution, less such part of those emoluments as the officer was then liable to contribute under any pension scheme associated with his employment, except any periodical sum payable in respect of additional contributory payments; and

(b)

in relation to any other employment, the annual rate of the emoluments of that employment at the time in question, less such part of those emoluments as the officer was then liable to contribute under any pension scheme associated with his employment:

Provided that, where fees were paid to a person as part of his emoluments during any year prior to that immediately preceding the loss or diminution, the amount in respect of fees to be included in the annual rate of emoluments mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) hereof shall be the annual average of the fees paid to him during the period of five years immediately preceding the loss or diminution, or such shorter period as may be reasonable in the circumstances;

“harbour reorganisation scheme” means a harbour reorganisation scheme which has been submitted and confirmed pursuant to section 18(4) of the Act, and has come into operation under the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Acts 1945 and 1965;

“local authority” means the council of a county, county borough, metropolitan borough, London borough, county district, rural parish or borough included in a rural district, the Greater London Council, the Common Council of the City of London and the council of the Isles of Scilly, any two or more of those authorities acting jointly and any joint committee, combined authority or joint board and a police authority for a county, a borough or a combined police area; and means in Scotland, any couny council, town council or district council including any joint committee or joint board of such authorities appointed under any enactment, order or scheme;

“long-term compensation” means compensation payable in accordance with the provisions of Part IV of these regulations for loss of employment or loss or diminution of emoluments ;

“material date” in relation to any person or class of persons who suffer loss of employment or loss or diminution of emoluments or pension rights in consequence of any of the provisions of a harbour reorganisation scheme (hereafter in and for the purposes only of this definition called “the claimant or claimants” ) means—

(a)

in regulation 3 of these regulations, the date on which the Minister makes the order by which the scheme is confirmed (or if the scheme is confirmed by Act of Parliament, the date of the presentation to Parliament of the Bill for the confirmation of the scheme), and

(b)

in any other of these regulations, the date on which the scheme comes into operation under the provisions of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Acts 1945 and 1965, except that when the claimant or claimants are transferred to the service of any of the relevant authorities or to a body constituted by the scheme in accordance with the provisions thereof and any such loss or diminution is first suffered by the claimant or claimants on or after the day of transfer, then the day of transfer shall be the material date as respects that claimant or those claimants instead of the date on which the scheme comes into operation as aforesaid, and in this definition the expression—“day of transfer” in relation to a claimant or claimants who are transferred as aforesaid means the day on which any of the powers, duties, interests in property, rights or liabilities (including any property, rights or liabilities vested in any of the relevant authorities for the purposes mentioned in section 18(2)(g) of the Act) of the person from whose service the claimant or claimants are transferred in pursuance of the scheme in question are transferred by that scheme or, if there is more than one such day, the first of them and the expression “the relevant authorities” has the same meaning as in section 18 of the Act

;

“minimum pensionable age” means, in relation to a pensionable officer, the earliest age at which, under the pension scheme associated with the employment he has lost or the emoluments of which have been diminished, he could have become entitled to a pension other than a pension payable in consequence of his incapacity to discharge efficiently the duties of his employment by reason of permanent ill-health or infirmity of mind or body;

“Minister” means the Minister of Transport;

“national service” means service which is relevant service within the meaning of the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces (Protection of Civil Interests) Act 1951, and includes service immediately following such service as aforesaid, being service in any of Her Majesty's naval, military or air forces pursuant to a voluntary engagement entered into with the consent of the authority or person under whom he held his last relevant employment;

“normal retiring age” means, in the case of a pensionable officer to whom an age of compulsory retirement applied by virtue of any pension scheme to which he was subject in the employment he has lost or the emoluments of which have been diminished or by virtue of the conditions of that employment, that age, and, in any other case, the age of 65 years if the officer is a male, or 60 years if the officer is a female;

“office” means any situation, place, or employment other thafn that of director of a company , and the expression “officer” shall be construed accordingly;

“pensionable officer” in relation to an officer who has suffered loss of employment, or loss or diminution of emoluments, means an officer who immediately before such loss or diminution of emoluments, means an officer who immediately before such loss or diminution was subject to a pension scheme associated with his employment;

“pension scheme” includes any form of arrangement for the payment of pensions whether subsisting by virtue of Act of Parliament, trust, contract or otherwise;

“reckonable service” in relation to a person means any period of whole-time or part-time employment in any relevant employment and includes any period of war service or national service undertaken on the person's ceasing to hold any such employment but does not include employment of which account has been taken, or is required to be taken, in calculating the amount of any superannuation benefit to which the person has become entitled;

“relevant employment” means subject to paragraph (4) of this regulation, employment—

(a)

under the Crown or in the service of any local authority in Great Britain, of any harbour authority, local lighthouse authority or of any person carrying out harbour operations, of any navigation authority as defined in section 135(1) of the Water Resources Act 1963, or of any authority which is a pilotage authority by virtue of section 8 of the Pilotage Act 1913, or

(b)

by any authority or body in Great Britain for the purposes of functions exercisable by the Crown, by any local authority or by any other authority or person mentioned in paragraph (a) of this definition, or

(c)

under any officer employed as mentioned in either of the foregoing paragraphs of this definition for the purposes of the functions of the employing authority, body or person, or

(d)

preceding any of the foregoing employments which is reckonable for the purposes of any pension scheme associated with the employment which has been lost or in which a loss or diminution of emoluments has been suffered in consequence of any of the provisions of a harbour reorganisation scheme;

“resettlement compensation” means compensation payable in accordance with Part III of these regulations for loss of employment suffered by a person to whom these regulations apply;

“retirement compensation” means compensation payable in accordance with the provisions of regulation 22 23, 24 or 25 of these regulations for loss or diminution of pension rights;

“tribunal” means a tribunal established under section 12 of the Industrial Training Act 1964;

“war service” means war service within the meaning of the Local Government Staffs (War Service) Act 1939, the Teachers Superannuation (War Service) Act 1939 (or, in Scotland, the Education (Scotland) (War Service Superannuation) Act 1939, the Police and Firemen War Service Act 1939 or employment for war purposes within the meaning of the Superannuation Schemes (War Service) Act 1940 and includes any period of service in the First World War in the armed forces of the Crown or in the forces of the Allied or Associated Powers if such service immediately followed a period of relevant employment and was undertaken either compulsorily or with the permission of the employer in that employment.

(2) (a) Where under any provision of these regulations an annual value is to be assigned to a capital sum or a capital value to an annual amount, the annual or capital value shall be ascertained in accordance with the tables set out in the Schedule to these regulations in so far as they provide for the particular case.

(b) For the purpose of determining the application of the said tables the headings and the note to each table shall be treated as a part of the table.

(c) Where the said tables do not provide for a case in which an annual value is to be assigned to a capital sum or a capital value to an annual amount, the annual or capital value shall be such as may be agreed between the compensating authority and the person to whom the capital sum or annual amount is payable.

(3) Unless the context otherwise requires, references in these regulations to the provisions of any enactment, rule, regulation, order or scheme shall be construed as references to those provisions as amended or re-enacted by any subsequent enactment, rule, regulation, order or scheme.

(4) Except as provided in regulation 6(2) and 12(2) of these regulations, the expression “relevant employment” shall not include service in the armed forces of the Crown.

(5) The Interpretation Act 1889 shall apply for the interpretation of these regulations as it applies for the interpretation of an Act of Parliament.

(1)

(1954 II, p. 1595).

(2)

(1954 II, p. 1632).