Liability estimates and lump sum payouts: FOI release

Information requested

In IM-FOI-2022-2447 Police Scotland answered the following request:

'How many officers have retired in i) The calendar year 2022 so far (ii) The financial year 2022-2023 so far (iii) The last three full financial years and (IV) how many officers in total have indicated they will retire by the end of the 2022-23 financial year.'

https://www.scotland.police.uk/spa-media/sszhr3n2/22-2447-response.pdf

The information is broken down into three categories:

1. Retirement 25-30 years;
2. Retired on ill health;
3. Retired on pension.

I seek information on your pension scheme liability for (i) Retirement 25-30 years and (ii) Retired on Pension for the full financial year 01/04/2019 – 31/03/2020.

Q1
For the year 1/4/19-31/3/20, please provide your original and current total pension scheme liability estimates for:

1. 110 officers - Retirement 25-30 years; and
2. 501 officers - Retired on pension.

According to the Daily Record:

'New pension rules – which came into place this year – allow cops to retire after serving 25 years instead of 30. That can mean lump-sum payouts of between £100,000 and £300,000 for all ranks up to chief superintendent. They can also retire on half their salary.'

Q2
Of the 456 officers (Retirement 25-30 years)- in the period 01/01/ 2022 – 31/10/2022, please provide the number who received lump-sum payouts. Please also state the total value of these payouts.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/police-scotland-facing-dearth-officers-28759316

Response

We do not have access to the SCOPE system in use by Police Scotland nor the raw data extracted and analysed in response to the Freedom of Information Request they have answered. Data has been extracted from our Pension Administration system in line or as close to the specification detailed in the Freedom of Information Request received. Our data set includes customers who have retired from a “deferred” status (officers who have retired from active service and those who have previously left the service) which we believe are not captured on the SCOPE system.

To remove ambiguity, the levels of categorisation we have used to answer the questions are mutually exclusive to each other. That is, that no member can appear in more than one of the categories on display.

It should be noted that for our breakdown, the term “officer” has been defined as the roles/grades outlined in your clarification, although we are unable to break down the category of constable by pay point so all constables are included in our totals.

We are unable to specify the amount of officers aged 60 or over who claimed specifically career average pensions between the relevant dates based on contributions they made to the police pension scheme. We have provided data for the amount of officers aged 60 or over who claimed pensions between the relevant dates based on contributions they made to the police pension scheme.

Our breakdown includes any retrospective updates to member records that may have occurred between the period in question and now.

Question 1

1. For the year 1/4/19 - 31/3/20, our original total pension scheme liability estimates for officers with retirement 25 - 30 years was £6, 477, 049.19.

For the year 1/4/19 - 31/3/20, our current total pension scheme liability estimates for officers with retirement 25 - 30 years was £6, 777, 664.13.

2. For the year 1/4/19 - 31/3/20, our original total pension scheme liability estimates for officers retired on pension was £358, 001.37

For the year 1/4/19 - 31/3/20, our current total pension scheme liability estimates for officers retired on pension was £514, 636.99.

Please refer to the table in annex A for raw data.

Question 2

The number of officers (retirement 25-30 years) in the period 01/01/ 2022 – 31/10/2022 who received lump-sum pay-outs was 634.

The total value of these pay-outs was £96, 041, 423.35.

Please refer to the table in annex B for raw data.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202300337018 - Information released

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