a day ago
Retired Perthshire officer still awaiting money amid police pension dispute
A retired Perthshire police officer says he is still awaiting money owed to him in a long-running dispute over pensions.
Brian Duncan, 55, from Bridge of Earn, served in the Perth and Kinross area for 27 years.
He is one of hundreds of retired officers across Scotland who say they have yet to receive pension payments due to them.
A campaign has been launched in frustration at ongoing delays and poor communication from the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA).
The dispute dates back to 2015, when the police pension scheme moved from the '1987 Scheme' to the CARE (career average revalued earnings) scheme, which bases pensions on average earnings throughout a career.
The 1987 Scheme allowed officers to retire with an immediate pension after 30 years of service, or at age 55 with any length of service.
This applied to officers who joined before April 6 2006, and was closed to active members on March 31 2022.
Brian, who retired in 2021, told The Courier he had planned his retirement before 'the carpet was ripped from under our feet'.
'The CARE scheme is much worse than the 1987 one,' he said.
'We couldn't possibly know or plan for that change. When we joined, you knew after 30 years, that was going to be our pension.
'They were essentially asking people to work an extra seven years in some cases because of their age.'
In 2018, an age discrimination case was brought to the Court of Appeal and won.
The ruling – known as the McCloud Judgment – forced the UK Government to implement changes across all public service pension schemes.
The amount owed to each retired officer depends on when they joined the force and how many years they served.
Brian added: 'The pensions were changed and now we're finally getting put back to where we should've been.
'The SPPA has now missed seven deadlines, and the lack of communication has just been atrocious.
'We've all got together on Facebook and decided to, en masse, put our feelings in writing that this can't go on.
'They're now saying that it's looking like October or December before this gets done – we were promised it would be March.
'We were meant to be first – the people in ill-health retiral, but now we're very much at the back of the queue.
'They've had four years to prepare, yet had no staffing or computer systems in place until the very last minute.'
Brian says the retired officers organisation has submitted a letter of no confidence to the SPPA arguing that hundreds of retirees in Scotland have been 'utterly cut adrift'.
He said the time it is taking for the SPPA to pay the officers back is adding to the interest that will be owed.
A spokesperson for the SPPA said: 'The SPPA is unable to comment on individual cases.
'However, we acknowledge the frustrations of retired police scheme members who have not yet received their statements and have apologised directly to those affected for the delay.
'The SPPA has made significant progress in delivery for the police pension scheme, where 84 per cent of immediate choice remediable service statements have been issued to date, as well as 99 per cent of deferred choice statements.
'This is a similar delivery position to most other police public sector administrators in the UK.
'Despite this progress, we recently took the difficult decision, in accordance with legislation, to extend the target dates for delivery for the remaining 16 per cent.
'The majority of statements are expected by the end of October and those remaining by the end of 2025.
'We continue to dedicate our resources to resolving the remaining 16 per cent of outstanding cases not yet produced.
'These are affected by a range of complex factors and require in-depth technical knowledge to ensure each one is completed accurately.
'The SPPA continues to work diligently and on a daily basis to ensure these cases are processed as quickly as possible and that accurate RSS are provided so that retired members already receiving pension payments can receive the accurate amounts due.'
