Police Pension Scheme Remedy Arrangements and Remedial Service Statements: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request 202500462587

This FOI request concerns the Scottish Government and SPPA responsibilities around the 2015 Remedy arrangements for police pension schemes, the issue of Remediable Service Statements (RSSs) and the fact that SPPA breached the 31st March statutory deadline to issue RSSs to thousands of pensioners. many of whom were in financial detriment.

Specifically,

1. Aside from the 100 RSS "test cases" referred to by SPPA in November 2024, how many actual RSSs were issued to Remedy pensioners by SPPA during the period between December 2024 and February 2025 inclusive?

2. Why were there so few RSSs issued in this time period given HMRC had supplied SPPA with all the necessary tax advice and SPPA has had since 2019 in effect to prepare for this duty?

3. Scottish Government and SPPA policy previously consistently stated pensioners in the most financial detriment would be prioritised in the RSS issue. Why did SPPA instead decide to change this policy and prioritise in March 2025 the issuing of RSSs for fully protected retired officers who were in the least financial detriment at the expense of those pensioners in the greatest financial detriment including IHR pensioners?

4. If HMRC Tax Guidance was not the reason for SPPA breaching the 31st March 2025 statutory deadline for RSS issue to thousands of pensioners then what was/were the reason(s)?

5. Did the Minister For Public Finance MSP Ivan McKee agree the prioritisation of Fully Protected pensioners in the ,March 2025 RSS issue?

6. What government budget held the funds to remedy the financial detriment of non-protected pensioners and was this funding in place for the 2024-2025 financial year or the 2025-206 financial year?

7. What is the projected RSS issue for both April 2025 and May 2025 given SPPA website claims to complete all but the very complex cases by this time?

8. What types of RSSs are unsuitable for automation and have to be processed manually due to their complexity?

Response

You asked for a review of our response to questions 2,3,4,5,7 and 8 of your original request.

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed, with modifications to questions 4,7 and 8. My decision is based on the view that information was not deliberately withheld, rather, the response reflected the responder’s genuine understanding of the request.

Please note that the FOI review process is limited to assessing compliance with the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Concerns regarding service quality, communication tone, or perceived fairness fall outside the scope of this review. These matters have been noted and will be referred to our Complaints Team for separate handling in accordance with our complaints procedure.

Taking each question in turn:

Question 2:

My review upholds our original response. The response is accurate as it was necessary that technical questions, such as those relating to tax, were answered to properly update internal processes and systems.

You referenced FOI activity regarding 12 HMRC-SPPA meetings. Meetings within the scope of the request submitted to SPPA formed part of a long-standing series of monthly meetings between single points of contact in both organisations. The original meeting purpose was to cover the integration of the Secure Data Exchange Service registration and agreed service standards. Once this was embedded, these meetings have frequently covered individual casework where there have been difficulties using the service; such as members submitting their pension adjustment on the HMRC portal and changes to the Accounting for Tax and/or Event Reporting.

Question 3:

My review upholds our original response. My review confirms that there have been no decisions made concerning the reprioritisation of casework. The use of automation has enabled the concurrent processing of cohorts. As there was no decision made in this regard, while it is our aim to provide information wherever possible, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that, in this instance, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. To clarify, SPPA has consistently intended to prioritise members in financial detriment, which typically, but not exclusively, includes unprotected members. The delivery of RSSs to unprotected members was delayed due to delays in the development of complex calculations required for unprotected members. During this period, SPPA had to pause work within this cohort to seek clarification from HM Treasury and the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD).

Within your review request you asked:

I want to know who was responsible for that hugely significant decision given the the time scales since 2023 and equally importantly why it was not properly communicated and explained to Remedy pensioners given the misinformation to date?

There was no decision made to re-prioritise, consequently nobody made this decision and no communications were required. While it is our aim to provide information wherever possible, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that, in this instance, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Question 4:

My review determines that our original response should have been clearer. The application of clause 29/10b was a consequence of factors outside of SPPA’s control. For retired members of the police scheme, this included awaiting HMRC clarification on how SPPA should treat Unauthorised Payment Charges. This delayed the completion of some outstanding cases and also required us to revisit and recalculate some scheme information as a result.

Question 5:

My review upholds our original response. My review confirms that there have been no decisions made concerning reprioritisation of casework. Fully protected members were never prioritised whilst other cohorts were not deprioritised. There was no agreement by Mr McKee.

Question 7:

My review determines that our original response should have been clearer. Section 17(1) ‘Information Not Held’ is applicable as at the time of the original FOI. The required application of technical guidance, subsequent system changes and Government Actuary Department quality assurances meant that projecting monthly figures would have been difficult to project RSS outputs with any meaningful accuracy. While it is our aim to provide information wherever possible, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that, in this instance, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. It may be helpful to you to direct you to the SPPA website where the delivery timelines that the SPPA are working to are published on our member website: Police Remedy: I'm retired | SPPA

Question 8:

My review determines that our original response should have been clearer. Where an individual has undergone significant life events that affect their pension, these cases cannot always be fully automated and, therefore, require a degree of manual intervention. It may be helpful to note that you can find examples of what constitute life events can be found detailed upon the SPPA website: https://pensions.gov.scot/police#LifeEvents

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