The Committee is scrutinising the progress being made in delivering the McCloud remedy in Scotland.

About the pensions agency

In Scotland, the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) administers pensions on behalf of the Scottish Government for:

• teachers;
• police;
• firefighters;
• National Health Service employees.

What is the McCloud remedy?

The UK Government reformed public sector pensions in 2014-15.  This saw people moved from their final salary pension scheme to a new scheme based on earnings across their entire employment.

As part of this reform, the UK Government introduced ‘transitional protections’ for older members of the schemes who were close to retirement.

In 2018, the Court of Appeal ruled that younger members of these pension schemes had been unlawfully discriminated against, as the protections were not applied to them.

In response, the UK Government committed to changing all public sector pension schemes to remove this discrimination.

These changes are known as the McCloud remedy.

Scrutiny to date

The committee has taken oral and written evidence from SPPA.  

The Committee has also corresponded with the Minister for Public Finance.