Serving officers impacted by the McCloud ruling: FOI release

Information requested

1. The total number of serving officers impacted by the McCloud ruling and require remediation.?

2. The total number of already retired officer impacted by the McCloud ruling and require remediation.?

3. The total number of officers who retired through ill health and are impacted by the McCloud ruling and require remediation.?

4. The total number of officers who have sadly passed away and their families are impacted by the McCloud ruling and require remediation.?

5. The number of SPPA staff that are being used to deal with all remediation cases.?

6. The average time taken to process and review an individual’s remediation.?

7. How are the officers (or bereaved families) impacted, listed in each group above i.e. by date of retiral or some other indexing.?

8. What financial support is available for retired officers who as a result of retiring and the subsequent delay in dealing with the remediation are now in financial hardship.?

9. What is the process to escalate a complaint that has not been answered to the persons satisfaction.?

10. What is the policy and associated timescales for dealing with a complaint about the service received from the SPPA.?

Response

1. The total number of serving Police Officers impacted by the McCloud ruling and require remediation is 8564; these are Deferred Choice cases.

2. The total number of already retired Police Officers impacted by the McCloud ruling and require remediation is 5046; these are Immediate Choice cases.

3. As of 2 February 2024, 615 Police Officer retirees are classed as being in scope of Immediate Detriment, having retired on the grounds of ill-health.

4. Remediable Service Statements will be issued in respect of 55 former Police Officers who died between 1 April 2015 and 31 October 2023.

5. As of 23 Feb 2024, there are 12 members of staff working on the Police Pension Remedy Team. These staff are initially working on Immediate Detriment cases, they will then move over to work on Immediate Choice cases. Deferred Choice cases are being worked on by our Police & Fire Awards team which is made up of 15 members of staff, however they are not ringfenced solely to remedy cases.

6. We are still in the assurance stage with Immediate Choice and Immediate Detriment cases so there have been no cases fully processed and reviewed yet. Deferred Choice cases are processed manually, and we are not able to isolate the time spent on those cases in order to give an average time taken.

7. There are 539 retired Police members who were in the 1987 scheme then transitioned to the CARE scheme and are in scope for remedy. This figure does not include those who are in scope for remedy but retired in the remedy period prior to joining the CARE scheme as they were Protected or Tapered but hadn’t yet reached their tapering date at the point of retirement. It is not possible to provide a breakdown of those who completed 30 years service and those who didn’t as this is not readily available on our Altair system. Remediable Service Statements will be issued in respect of 55 former Police Officers who died between 1 April 2015 and 31 October 2023.

8. The SPPA is working within the statutory timeframe and there has been no delay to the remediation of pensions. The provisions of the 2015 remedy mandate that where there is an uplift in pension benefits as a result of an eligible members choice, that any arrears of pension and/or lump sum should attract interest at a rate of 8% (subject to any tax), applied as simple interest, up to the date 28 days after the remediable service statement is sent to the impacted pensioner. Interest thereafter is applied at the National Savings and Investments ‘Direct Saver’ rate (currently 3.65%). The 8% rate is well above any equivalent commercial savings rate and this provides compensation for the delay between the judgment and eventual remedy.

9 and 10.This information is available from the SPPA website at the following links:

• Complaints | SPPA (pensions.gov.scot)
• Scottish_Public_Pensions_Agency_Complaints_Handling_Procedure_v1_12012022.pdf 

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

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