Some 37,832 retired members were still awaiting statements at September 30.
The agency has also admitted it intends to extend deadlines for police, firefighters and teachers beyond December 31, while the remaining police cases are not expected to be completed until March 2027 – six months later than the last deadline set.
The remedy followed a court ruling that changes to public sector pensions introduced in 2015 unlawfully discriminated against younger workers. Eligible members have since been entitled to choose between legacy and reformed scheme benefits for the period from April 2015 to March 2022.
Under the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022, all eligible members were legally supposed to receive their remedy outlining their choice between legacy and reformed scheme benefits by April last year. But as deadline after deadline was missed, tens of thousands of pensioners have been waiting for payments worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Martin Gallagher, who leads the Job’s Forgotten campaign, said: “This is an ongoing national scandal.” He added: “My members haven’t just been abandoned, they are being punished. Punished by the very state they protected.”
Pensions campaigner Martin Gallagher speaks out as the Scots pensions agency misses more deadlines (Image: NQ)
The figures have raised fresh questions about the pace of the clean-up, which followed a landmark legal ruling that found public sector pension reforms had unlawfully discriminated against younger workers. The remedy is intended to correct the position of eligible members affected by the changes, but tens of thousands of retired staff are still waiting to receive the statements setting out their options.
Mr Gallagher said: “I completely fail to understand how it can take six months to work out the calculations required for the remaining 300 police officers. It is outrageous.”
The SPPA said it had so far issued 127,266 remedy statements by September 30, out of around 215,000 members eligible for one. These figures include people still working and those who have left their jobs but not yet retired, as well as pensioners. The SPPA’s briefing said it had issued 127,266 remedy statements across all categories by September 30, out of approximately 215,000 members eligible to receive one. That wider figure includes statements for active and deferred members as well as retired members.
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The latest figures show the scale of the problem varies sharply between schemes. Among retired members eligible for the remedy, 94.3% of police officers had received their statements by September 30, compared with 68.5% of firefighters, 29.7% of teachers and 37% of NHS staff.
It shows that the teachers’ progress has increased by only 5.5 percentage points since July, while the NHS figure remains unchanged. The agency says it is reviewing and replanning the remaining work for teachers and the NHS after learning more about the complicated cases in the police scheme.
One retired teacher who contacted The Herald said the approach was unfair to those waiting in the larger schemes, where progress remained far slower than for police pensioners.
The teacher said: “No member should be left on a provisional unresolved pension rate without committed resolution.”
Mr Pathirana says the SPPA has informed pension boards and the Pensions Regulator that it intends to extend the deadlines for police, firefighters and teachers beyond December 31, 2026. It says the agency plans to update the regulator at the end of November and formally notify it of the extensions in December.
Stephen Pathirana (Image: Scottish Parliament)
The briefing does not give a new overall deadline for teachers or the NHS. In a separate message to retired teachers, the SPPA said it would miss the current December 31 deadline and promised to provide a summary of revised delivery timescales later.
For police pensioners, the agency says it expects to complete the remaining 300 cases by the end of March 2027. These are described as the final and most complex cases, involving issues such as lifetime allowances, pension sharing on divorce, beneficiaries of deceased members and other individual circumstances.
Mr Gallagher said the delays were causing serious concern among campaign members who had spent their careers serving the public and were now waiting to establish their full pension entitlement.
He said: “The stress on my members is intolerable. There are really large sums of money involved. Cops cannot enjoy their earned retirement.”
Mr Pathirana said that the final police cases required “sensitivity and care” and said the agency’s priority was to get them right, which involved giving them the necessary time.
The SPPA briefing says: “We have had to make the difficult decision to prioritise individual subject matter experts to the police project full-time. Once complete, the same subject matter experts will then, as planned, take the lessons learned from, and processes developed for, police and apply them to firefighters, which should mean that overall processing should be quicker and smoother for the remaining firefighter cohorts.”
For retired members, the Remediable Service Statement is the document that explains their options and enables them to decide which pension treatment is more beneficial. Until they receive it, they cannot make that formal choice.
In a briefing to MSPs, Mr Pathirana said: “I again extend my sincere apologies to them as we continue to work through their cases.”
The agency said it would continue to provide updates to members through its online remedy hubs and newsletters. It also said it was working with employers and representative bodies to improve communications about progress.
The pensions crisis deepens (Image: PA)
Mr Gallagher, however, said the delays had gone on for too long and called for those responsible to be held to account.
He said: “The fact no one is taking action against them for this us outrageous.”
A spokesman for SPPA said: they were “working hard to deliver the remainder” of the remedy statements ” as soon as is practicable”.
“The SPPA has written to those remaining Remedy-eligible members to let them know that we intend to extend the current 31 December 2026 statutory deadline for completing police, firefighters’ and teachers’ Remedy and to apologise for the further delay.
“Additionally, we have updated the Finance and Public Administration Committee of the Scottish Parliament and are continuing to engage with employers, unions, the scheme pension boards, and The Pensions Regulator.
“We will notify The Pensions Regulator formally in December that we will be extending the statutory deadlines and will also provide a further update for members, stakeholders, partners and the Scottish Parliament of the details of that extension.
“All retired members are receiving a pension. For most the pension they are currently on is the most beneficial for them. Any arrears of pension or lump sum that arise from a member’s Remedy choice attracts interest from the date the underpayment arose until it is paid.”